India’s agricultural future depends not just on innovation, but on building inclusive, adaptive infrastructure, experts agreed at the Agrotech Talks organized by Agrotech Space on 22 May 2025. The panel underscored that without systemic upgrades to physical and digital infrastructure, innovation alone cannot deliver impact at scale.
The panel discussion: “Is Infrastructure Innovation the Missing Link in Scalable, Sustainable Agriculture?” drew on diverse insights from Madhukar Swayambhu (Co-Founder, Vaidic Srijan), Morup Namgail (Head, Ag-Tech, IFFCO Kisan), Sachin Sharma (Founder, Agro Farm Ventures/Kisan Manch), Shenoy Mathew (Chief Sustainability Officer, Arya.ag), and Vijay Singh (CEO, Shunya Agritech). The discussion, moderated by Shweta Dalmmia, founder of Bharat Climate Startups, unfolded across themes of technological adoption, data accessibility, value chain redesign, post-harvest losses, water resource management, and equitable market access.
The panelists emphasized the urgent need for infrastructure that reflects farmers’ realities — decentralized storage, hyper-local logistics, real-time data, and AI-driven value chains — and called for collaborative models that bridge policy, technology, and grassroots needs. The discussion highlighted how India’s agricultural progress depends on aligning digital access with physical infrastructure, and innovation with affordability.
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From Fragmented Inputs to Integrated Value Chains
Opening the discussion, Morup Namgail highlighted that agriculture in India is still operating with fragmented, disconnected stakeholders. “All the people who are trying to do something new in the space, they’re working in silos,” he noted. According to him, the absence of a shared data ecosystem and hyper-local intelligence is the central bottleneck. “That single ecosystem where all these data points, where all these people can work together is completely missing. That’s why agritech is still in the nascent stage,” he observed.
Namgail described his work with IFFCO Kisan as an attempt to integrate emerging technologies like IoT, AI, remote sensing, into a value chain that begins with the farmer’s field and ends with structured market access.
“The real unlocking will happen when we enter into a phase of pervasive intelligence, where the intelligence is embedded in everything, from sensors in the field to the tractors and the supply chain logistics. For innovations to be effective, they must align with real-time market demand and consumer behavior.”
Morup Namgail as an agri-expert is building digital twins, data-rich virtual representations of farm systems, as a long-term solution. “Today, agriculture is still production-driven. A farmer grows what he can, takes it to market, and hopes for a price. But with pervasive intelligence, it can be demand-driven. The consumer’s preferences can inform what gets grown and where,” he explained. He pointed out that technologies like IoT and AI can only deliver value if they’re part of a comprehensive value chain. “Until we fix the post-production innovation vacuum, including mandis, this cycle will keep repeating,” he warned.
Post-Harvest Infrastructure and the Economics of Waste
Sachin Sharma of Kisan Manch addressed the infrastructure differences, pointing to India’s disjointed investment patterns. “Last year, the Indian government allocated 1.3 lakh crore to agriculture. However, several other countries invest significantly more in the sector,” he noted. According to Sachin Sharma, a two-pronged approach is essential—government-led infrastructure must work in tandem with private sector investment in farm-level facilities.
“The government’s role is to build the backbone: rural roads, rail networks, port linkages. But at the farm level, we need private sector investments in cold chains, grading machines, and crop-specific storage.”
He also highlighted the unevenness in cold storage capacity. “Most of India’s storage infrastructure is built for potatoes. There is a huge gap in storage for perishable produce,” he stated. He emphasized the urgency for efficient transport linkages and cited real-world examples, including a potato train from Agra to South India as a potential solution to reduce wastage.
“When I visited one of a collection center in Himachal, it turned out to be just a 20×20 feet hall with a weighing machine. We need real infrastructure, not symbols,” Sachin Sharma asserted.
Invisible Backbones and Localized Storage Models
Shenoy Mathew of Arya.ag presented an enterprise-level view of systemic change. Operating 5,000 post-harvest facilities and handling 3% of India’s agricultural output, Arya.ag has emerged as a quiet but expansive force. Mathew spoke of a deepening rural disinterest in farming, exacerbated by erratic income and climate risks. “Who is doing the farming now? It’s often the elderly or women in the family. That’s the reality,” he said.
Instead of pursuing capital-heavy models, Arya.ag leveraged what was available, temple grounds, abandoned shops, even poster stores, to convert into decentralized storage units. “When storage was not available, we brought in hermetic bags that created 10,000-ton storage out of thin air,” he noted. Financial services followed: “Today, a farmer stores produce and gets a loan credited in under three minutes—fully tech-enabled,” Shenoy Mathew added.
He emphasized that such changes should not be seen as futuristic disruptions but as grounded, adaptive innovations.
“We can’t create large warehouses in every village. So we create viability first. The infrastructure follows.”
Water, Energy, and the Ethical Use of Technology
Madhukar Swayambhu of Vaidic Srijan focused on water infrastructure, a critical yet often misunderstood pillar of agriculture. “Water is not just H₂O. Its purpose beneath the soil is to act as a pneumatic shock absorber for tectonic plates,” he explained. He critiqued the unchecked use of solar and hydroelectric systems, arguing that some renewable strategies may carry hidden ecological costs. “A solar plant reflects infrared into the atmosphere, locally increasing temperature by 5-6 degrees. Multiply that globally, and we have a crisis,” he said.
“Vaidic Srijan has developed a model known as MAGICC, Medicine for Agricultural Growth and Integrated Crop Conservation, that aims to restore environmental cycles rather than exploit them. Everything in nature moves in cycles. We must stop treating resources as consumables.”
Rethinking Cattle Fodder and the Role of Hydroponics
Vijay Singh of Shunya Agritech offered an unconventional lens by focusing on cattle fodder, a largely neglected yet economically pivotal segment. “Milk makes up 30% of a farmer’s income and 5% of India’s GDP, yet our per-animal productivity is among the lowest,” he said. His hydroponics-based model allows for dense nutritional fodder to be delivered directly to a farmer’s doorstep. “We turned a 90-minute daily labor task into a logistical solution,” Vijay Singh said. He was candid about the limitations of technology without context.
“The farmer is not your average customer. Unless your technology demonstrates tangible cost reduction or income improvement, he won’t pay. So you need to produce stuff which really really works for him. Any innovation must first answer: Why does the farmer need this?”
Policy, Data, and Last-Mile Enablement
Questions from the audience turned the conversation toward policy and digital innovation. Sachin Sharma responded by detailing India’s layered subsidy architecture, supporting both developers and farmers, ranging from input credits to transport and marketing incentives. He outlined how reforms in APMC and the rollout of digital ENAM centers are intended to ensure transparency and timely payments. “Farmers are getting subsidies not just for seeds or tools but also for transport, infrastructure, and even crop purchase,” he explained.
Vijay Singh noted that milk offers a rare example of successful last-mile design. “Today, in any village of 500–600 households, there are two to three milk collection centers, all digitally enabled. The farmer knows exactly what he’ll be paid,” he stated.
On data, the panel emphasized that satellite and mobile-based systems have significantly improved predictive insights. From satellite-linked stress monitoring to mobile-based yield prediction algorithms, digital models are beginning to substitute traditional field visits. “Today, I can know if you followed DSR or flood irrigation based on your satellite signature,” Shenoy Mathew shared.
However, panelists cautioned developers not to build general-purpose tools without understanding user needs. “Who are you building for? If it’s for an insurance company, tailor it for loss verification. If it’s for a farmer, show how it reduces cost or improves yield,” said Morup Namgail.
Call for Systems-Level Thinking and Collaborative Networks
All panelists converged on a recurring theme: the need for systemic, not piecemeal, thinking. Whether it is about data for predictive agriculture or enabling last-mile distribution, the success of future infrastructure lies in its interlinkages.
As Morup Namgail noted, “Innovation is bound to happen. But unless it connects the buyer, the farmer, the input provider, and the researcher in one feedback loop, we are building castles in the sand.” Shweta Dalmmia concluded the panel by reminding the audience that infrastructure innovation is not about technology alone but about restoring trust, affordability, and access.
“The only way forward is to build with the farmers, build with nature—and that’s when we’ll see real scale and real impact.”
The panel, rich in candor and specificity, stood not just as a conversation but as a strategic blueprint, a collective appeal for infrastructure that works, not just exists. Across diverse domains, the speakers converged on a common premise: that India’s agricultural transformation hinges on ecosystem-level thinking rather than isolated interventions.
