Agri-startups value addition can help in doubling farmers income: Union Minister

Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar inaugurated the Virtual Agri-hackathon 2020 being organised by the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation and Farmers’ Welfare in association with IARI, Pusa, New Delhi.

Speaking on the occasion Tomar said agriculture is the backbone of the country and plans are afoot to strengthen this backbone with youth engagement, employment generation, technology & digitization.

The two-months long hackathon is focused on to bring together different stakeholders from industry, government and startups to explore the use cases and create solutions that can help the agriculture sector in the country.

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The application to participate in the hackathon is opened till January 20. The programme has been divided into three rounds and organisers plans to select top 24 startups or innovators for a prize of one lakh each.

The winning innovations will get an exclusive preference for incubation support, pre-seed & seed-stage funding of 5 Lakhs and 25 Lakhs respectively at any one of the 29 RABIs, along with the opportunity of field trial and access to technology validation, said the organisers.

The hackathon is accepting innovations & ideas on farm mechanization, precision agriculture, supply chain & food technology, waste to wealth, green energy, among others.

Participating in the launch programme, Union Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala stressed on the ministry’s plan to encourage youth engagement with agriculture and farmers and scope to develop innovations.

On the other hand, Union Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary said: “This event is very crucial from the standpoint of new technology and value addition in agriculture. It will help us achieve our dream of doubling the farmer’s income which in turn will create many growth opportunities for the entire country.”

Following the launch, Agri India Hackathon will also host speaker sessions called Agri India Meets spread across 2 months with more than 40 speakers who will discuss the present & future of agriculture.