ICAR-NAARM Technology Business Incubator (TBI), a-IDEA and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad’s (IIM-A) incubator Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) announces AGRI-UDAAN, a programme to promote innovations and entrepreneurship in agriculture and help them connect potential investors.
“The idea is to attract the youth from rural India and elsewhere, and train them so they can add value to the farmers’ produce,” said Narendra Singh Rathore, deputy director general of agricultural education at ICAR.
Under this programme the startups will undergo a 6-months training period after which they will be connected to the potential investors.
“Our goal is to begin a start-up revolution in agriculture which so far has been limited to the services sector,” he added.
Through AGRI UDAAN government will be reaching out to agri-startups across the country with a series of road shows in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata & Hyderabad.
The startups under this programme will get incubation space and access to research laboratories and libraries. AGRI UDAAN will also help the selected start-ups with regulatory services like company registration and environmental compliances.
In its pre-launch phase which was started in 2015, the ICAR’s National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NARM) in Hyderabad incubated several new start-ups which are now processing exotic grains, manufacturing kinetic farm machines, and developing smart irrigation systems.
Kinemach, a company mentored under the UDAAN programme is developing a new range of farm machinery that mimics human tasks on the field—from ploughing to weeding.
The programme launched will be shortlisting 40 startups in its first round who will pitch their ideas to the panel, out of which 10-12 startups will be selected for final capacity building workshop.