Nkosh is an agritech platform transforming India’s agricultural sector by providing farmers, MSMEs and producer groups with seamless access to B2B markets. With a full-stack digital ecosystem, Nkosh optimizes supply chain efficiencies, enhances financial inclusion and empowers agribusinesses through AI-driven solutions. By leveraging technology to bridge gaps in price transparency, logistics and digital adoption, the company is committed to revolutionizing the agribusiness landscape.
In a conversation with Agrotech Space, Ashutosh Tiwari, Founder and CEO at Nkosh, shares insights on the platform’s impact, its innovative approach to digitizing India’s agricultural value chain, and its vision for the future. Following are the edited excerpts from the interview:
Agrotech Space: What inspired the creation of Nkosh, and what critical challenges in India’s agribusiness sector does it seek to address?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Nkosh was born out of a deep-rooted passion for transforming India’s agricultural sector, a vision shaped by my own upbringing in a farming family. Despite India being one of the largest producers of agricultural commodities, farmers struggle with inefficiencies, lack of price transparency, supply chain losses, and low digital adoption. We wanted to bridge these gaps by leveraging technology to empower farmers, optimize the supply chain, and create a more transparent marketplace.
Agrotech Space: How does Nkosh differentiate itself in India’s agritech space, and what key inefficiencies in the agricultural value chain does it resolve?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Nkosh sets itself apart by providing an end-to-end digital ecosystem that connects farmers, traders, and agribusinesses, addressing some of the most pressing challenges in the agricultural sector. Nkosh work directly with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to ensure fair pricing and eliminate middlemen, which helps farmers maximize their earnings.
“Our platform also offers real-time crop analytics and soil testing solutions, enabling farmers to make data-driven decisions that improve yield and efficiency.”
Another critical area we focus on is financial inclusion. Nkosh facilitates seamless digital transactions, ensuring secure payments. Post-harvest losses are a major concern in the industry, and to tackle this, we provide smart warehousing solutions that enhance storage and reduce spoilage. Additionally, we offer AI-driven advisory services, delivering customized insights that help farmers optimize their agricultural practices.
Agrotech Space: Given the diversity of farming practices and infrastructure across India, what is Nkosh’s strategy for scaling its operations effectively?
Ashutosh Tiwari: India’s agricultural diversity presents both a challenge and an opportunity, and our scaling strategy is designed to address this complexity while ensuring widespread adoption. We take a localized approach, tailoring our solutions to specific regional crops, soil conditions, and farming practices. Partnerships with FPOs play a crucial role in our expansion. By collaborating with FPOs, we can gain farmers’ trust and scale more efficiently, as these organizations provide direct access to a large farmer base.
Additionally, we actively pursue government and institutional tie-ups, working with state agriculture departments and research institutions. These collaborations help us align with government initiatives, access valuable resources. Technology is a key enabler in our expansion strategy. Through tech-enabled expansion, our digital platform allows us to onboard farmers remotely, eliminating physical barriers to adoption. This ensures that farmers, even in remote areas, can benefit from real-time advisory services, digital transactions, and precision farming insights without requiring extensive infrastructure.
Agrotech Space: How is Nkosh ensuring that small-scale farmers can easily adopt and trust digital solutions despite challenges like digital literacy, connectivity issues, and accessibility?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Adoption of technology among small-scale farmers requires a strategic and inclusive approach, and Nkosh is committed to making digital solutions easy to use, accessible, and trustworthy. We actively run digital literacy initiatives, conducting training programs in rural areas to educate farmers on how to navigate our platform effectively. To enhance usability, the Nkosh app features a user-friendly interface, available in multiple regional languages with voice-enabled support, ensuring that farmers, regardless of literacy levels, can interact with the platform with ease.
“Connectivity limitations in rural India are a major barrier, which is why our platform includes offline functionality. Farmers can access critical information even in low-connectivity areas, allowing them to make informed decisions without relying on continuous internet access.”
Building trust is equally important in driving adoption. We work closely with local Krishi Saarthi Kendras and agri-cooperatives to instill confidence in our digital services. By combining education, accessibility, and local partnerships, Nkosh ensures that small-scale farmers can seamlessly integrate technology into their agricultural practices, ultimately improving efficiency and profitability.
Agrotech Space: In what ways is Nkosh optimizing supply chain efficiency and minimizing losses across the agricultural value chain?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Nkosh is revolutionizing supply chain efficiency by leveraging technology-driven solutions that streamline operations, minimize wastage, and maximize profitability for farmers and agribusinesses. Through real-time market access, farmers can instantly connect with buyers, reducing dependency on middlemen and ensuring direct transactions that lead to better pricing and faster sales.
To support post-harvest management, we provide smart warehousing solutions, allowing farmers to store their produce in tech-enabled warehouses. This not only reduces wastage but also ensures they can sell at the right time for optimal pricing.
Logistics plays a crucial role in supply chain efficiency, and Nkosh addresses this through logistics optimization. Our AI-driven logistics model matches supply with demand, optimizing transportation routes to reduce delays and costs. Additionally, we empower farmers with a price discovery mechanism, offering real-time data insights that enable them to sell at competitive prices and maximize their earnings.
Agrotech Space: How does Nkosh ensures financial sustainability while delivering impactful solutions for farmers and MSMEs?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Nkosh has developed a balanced financial sustainability model that ensures long-term viability while continuing to deliver value-driven solutions for farmers and MSMEs. Our transaction-based revenue model generates income through a small percentage fee on digital transactions conducted on our platform. This allows us to facilitate seamless and secure financial interactions while ensuring a steady revenue stream. Additionally, we offer subscription-based advisory services, where farmers can opt for premium, AI-driven insights and customized guidance to enhance productivity and profitability.
Strategic collaborations also play a vital role in sustaining our operations. We partner with agri-input companies to facilitate targeted marketing campaigns, creating a mutually beneficial ecosystem where farmers gain access to quality inputs while companies connect with the right audience. Furthermore, we actively pursue institutional funding and grants, leveraging government schemes and CSR initiatives to expand our impact and scale our solutions efficiently.
Agrotech Space: How does Nkosh collaborate with policymakers and regulatory bodies to drive digital transformation in agriculture?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Nkosh actively collaborates with policymakers and regulatory bodies to drive digital transformation in agriculture by aligning with government initiatives, contributing data-driven insights, and fostering grassroots-level implementation of technology.
We partner with government programs like RKVY Raftaar to promote the adoption of agritech solutions, ensuring that farmers benefit from modern innovations. Additionally, we provide real-time data to regulatory bodies, enabling them to make informed decisions and formulate policies that support sustainable agricultural growth.
“Our collaborations extend to leading research and academic institutions, including ICAR, PUSA Krishi, Indigram Lab Foundation, IIT Kanpur, CSJMU Kanpur and state agricultural departments. Through these partnerships, we implement digital solutions at the grassroots level, ensuring that cutting-edge technology reaches farmers effectively.”
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Agrotech Space: How does Nkosh leverage AI, big data, and predictive analytics to enhance decision-making for farmers and agribusinesses?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Nkosh leverages advanced technologies like AI, big data, and predictive analytics to empower farmers and agribusinesses with smarter, data-driven decision-making tools. Our AI-based crop advisory system analyzes key factors such as soil health, weather patterns, and crop diseases to provide customized recommendations, helping farmers optimize their yields. We also utilize predictive pricing models to forecast market trends, enabling farmers to strategically time their sales for maximum profitability.
To improve financial accessibility, we harness big data for credit scoring, allowing financial institutions to assess farmers’ creditworthiness more accurately and facilitate easier loan approvals. Additionally, our blockchain-powered traceability solutions ensure transparency across the agricultural supply chain, enhancing trust between farmers, buyers, and consumers.
Agrotech Space: What are Nkosh’s current funding priorities, and how do you plan to attract investors while staying true to your core mission?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Nkosh’s funding priorities are strategically aligned with our vision of creating a more efficient and technology-driven agricultural ecosystem. Our immediate focus areas include expanding the Krishi Saarthi Kendra network, which serves as a crucial touchpoint for farmer engagement and digital adoption. We are also investing in enhancing AI and machine learning capabilities to further refine our data-driven advisory services and predictive analytics.
Strengthening partnerships with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and agri-retail chains remains a key priority, as these collaborations help us scale efficiently while ensuring direct benefits for farmers. Additionally, we are focused on scaling warehousing and logistics solutions to reduce post-harvest losses and improve supply chain efficiency. To attract investors, we emphasize our strong revenue growth, impact-driven approach, and scalable model that seamlessly blends profitability with social good.
Also read: INTERVIEW | Dr. Ravindra Pastor on e-Fasal’s Mission to Empower Last-mile Agroretailers
Agrotech Space: What are the major challenges Nkosh faces, and what strategies are in place to maintain a competitive edge?
Ashutosh Tiwari: Like any transformative agritech platform, Nkosh faces several challenges, but we have strategic solutions in place to overcome them and maintain our competitive edge. One of the key hurdles is digital adoption barriers, as many farmers are unfamiliar with technology. We tackle this through extensive farmer training programs, ensuring they gain the necessary digital literacy to use our platform effectively.
Another major challenge is the fragmented supply chain, which we address by strengthening logistics partnerships to create a more streamlined and efficient agricultural value chain. Competition from large players in the agritech sector is also a factor, but our FPO-centric model and deep rural penetration give us a distinct advantage. By working directly with Farmer Producer Organizations, we ensure fair pricing, build strong farmer relationships, and create a more inclusive ecosystem. Lastly, capital constraints can be a challenge in scaling operations. To mitigate this, we continuously engage investors while also leveraging CSR funding and institutional grants to drive sustainable growth.
Agrotech Space: Where do you envision Nkosh by 2030, and what long-term impact do you aim to create in India’s agricultural sector?
Ashutosh Tiwari: By 2030, we aim to be India’s largest digital agribusiness platform, revolutionizing the agricultural ecosystem with technology-driven solutions that empower farmers and agribusinesses.
“Our goal is to integrate over 10 million farmers into the formal economy, ensuring they have access to fair pricing, financial services and market opportunities.”
A key focus area is reducing post-harvest losses by 30% through smart warehousing solutions, enabling better storage management and minimizing wastage. Additionally, we aim to facilitate seamless credit access for farmers using AI-driven credit scoring, helping them secure loans efficiently and fostering financial inclusion. Through these initiatives, Nkosh is committed to driving a more efficient, profitable and technology-enabled agricultural sector, ultimately transforming India’s rural economy and ensuring sustainable growth for millions of farmers.
