Apex Brasil (Brazilian Trade & Investment Promotion Agency) in media partnership with Elets Technomedia organised AgriTalks India-Brazil on September 28, 2021. It was a virtual summit that aimed at strengthening India-Brazil agriculture cooperation by facilitating cross border dialogue on Agri-Tech Innovations.
The webinar saw enriching deliberations from a wide spectrum of speakers ranging from H.E. André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, Ambassador of Brazil to India; Augusto Pestana, CEO, Apex Brasil to esteemed speaker panels including experts from Brazil and Indian government, industry and academia.
H.E. André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, Ambassador of Brazil to India, delivered a welcome address and expressed his gratitude to all the esteemed speakers at the summit.
“The type of discussions that we’re trying to promote at the summit is what we believe we have to do as governments… Agriculture is one of the most dynamic sectors of the Brazilian and the Indian economy. However, it is not important because the sector forms a large part of our economy but also because we have agriculture that exists in its most traditional dimension and is also modern and technology-driven today,” he said. The number of AgriTech startups in India and Brazil have risen in recent times. It would benefit both the countries to indulge in cross-learning programmes which is one of the objectives of this virtual summit, he added.
Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare said, “India has performed well despite the COVID-19 pandemic. We produced a record quantity of food grains in the year 2020. This was made possible through government interventions at the Centre and the State levels to keep the input supply chains open as well as ensuring quick procurement of the agricultural produce while ensuring that all the preventive measures required during the pandemic are taken care of.”
Further, he spoke on governments initiatives in augmenting the agriculture sector in India through policy reforms, subsidies, technology interventions and empowering small farmers.
“Our focus now is to enhance productivity to make post- harvest management robust and give farmers and buyers a unified national market for optimising benefits for both. In this regard, a dedicated US$14 billion Agri Infrastructure Fund, known by AIF, has been set up for creating farm gate and agricultural marketing infrastructure in rural areas.” Deliberating on how technology has been an enabler in the agriculture sector, Dr Likhi said, “As our experience in India has shown, technology has been a major pillar of strength for Indian agriculture in absorbing the shocks of COVID-19.”
Towards a Future of Food Security with AgriTech
While, moderating the second Panel Discussion on ‘Towards a Future of Food Security with AgriTech’, Dharani Kanth Koganti, Assistant Vice President, Agri & Fisheries, Invest India, said, “In the last few years, we have seen a phenomenal uptake of several technologies including drones, GIS mapping, geo-tagging, etc. in the agricultural space.” Addressing the summit on transformation in the farm sector, he also detailed the role of Invest India in strengthening the agricultural startups through investments, technology solutions and contributions from startups.
Representing Embrapa and highlighting its role in revamping the farm sector in Brazil, Dr Alexandre Amaral, Advisor, Embrapa, Directorate of Research & Development, said, “We tropicalised crops and cattle in Brazil. This helped us to enhance our produce and efficiency, hence improving the country’s agriculture holistically.” Further, speaking on AgriTech companies in the country and their contributions in strengthening the farm sector, he said that Embrapa is developing various AgriTech companies in the country that will enhance the adoption of technology solutions in farming thereby giving a boost to the industry.
Speaking on the Indian context, Dr Rabi N Sahoo, Principal Scientist, Indian Council for Agricultural Research-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-IARI), said, “We have seen exponential growth in remote sensing technologies in agriculture in recent times. We are quite advanced in using remote sensing in the agriculture sector.”
However, India needs to buck up with the adoption of more technology interventions in agriculture.
He cited Brazil as a case study and said, “Brazil has come out with more from less. They are one of the leaders in exporting agricultural produce.” Brazil has been putting efforts in intensive cultivation, enhancing the production system and hence, they witnessed exponential growth in their agriculture sector.
Daniel Trento, Open Innovation General Coordinator, Ministry of Agriculture, Brazil, said, “Apart from eyeing Brazil as a food supplier, we also see the country as a food secure nation.”
Speaking on AgriTech startups, he said, “In the last two years we had an increase of 40 per cent in the number of AgriTech startups in Brazil. Even in the pandemic period, we got nearly 1500 AgriTech startups in the year 2020 which is comparatively more than the 1100 in 2019.” During the pandemic, more focus was laid on logistics, distribution, traceability, especially because Brazil is viewed as a food supplier.
Dr Vilas A Tonapi, Director, ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR), putting forth his perspectives on Indian agriculture startups and the significance of technology solutions, said, “We are addressing end to end solutions for crop improvement, the impact of climate change on crops and AgriTech startups.”
Speaking of Brazilian agriculture startups, Dr Tonapi said, “Brazil startups have come up with several breakthrough technologies like biopesticides, and more. We need to get those for Indian agriculture.” He further mentioned about digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers have strengthened the supply chain. Similarly, startups will be playing a major role in augmenting agriculture tomorrow.
Valedictory Session
Augusto Pestana, CEO, Apex Brasil, commenced his valedictory address by thanking the Ambassador of Brazil to India H.E. André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, Paulo Alvim, Dalci Bagolin, and all the speakers and delegates at the summit.
Summing up the webinar, he said, “Conditions are ripe and time is right for both countries to come together and forge winning partnerships for revolutionising their agriculture sector.” With his closing remarks, the AgriTalks India-Brazil ended on a high note.