India’s agricultural sector is at a pivotal crossroads, where the need for sustainable practices intersects with the promise of digital innovation. At the forefront of this transformation is Arya.ag, a digital grain commerce platform that is not only improving access to markets and credit for smallholder farmers but is also embedding environmental and social goals into the core of its business model. With a focus on decentralised storage, quality-linked financing, and data-driven decision-making, Arya.ag is redefining how rural India connects with mainstream agricultural value chains.
In this conversation, Shenoy Mathew, Chief Sustainability Officer at Arya.ag, sheds light on how the company is building resilient rural economies through smart farmer institutions, climate-aware solutions, and inclusive trade platforms like Prithvi Pro. Drawing from his extensive experience and Arya.ag’s grassroots presence, Mathew talks about bridging trust gaps, fostering formal rural employment, and enabling both geographic and financial inclusion in farming communities.
As Chief Sustainability Officer, how do you integrate environmental goals into Arya.ag’s agrotech solutions?
Shenoy Mathew: It’s not a formal or inorganic process. When we assess our presence and activities at the end of the year, we see measurable impact. We operate in 58 government-notified climatically stressed districts facing diverse production challenges: desertification in Gujarat and Rajasthan, inconsistent snowfall in the Himalayas, erratic rainfall in Maharashtra, and salinification in Tamil Nadu. All these affect crop production and farmer livelihoods.
Whether it’s heat stress or sudden rainfall, these challenges significantly affect farm production across various regions. Through our presence and offerings, we help limit the farmer’s losses—primarily by enabling scientific storage of their produce. We also provide access to finance, allowing them to operate with optimal capital, and connect them to markets through our commerce model, which reduces intermediaries. Together, these interventions contribute to building economic resilience for the farmer.
One key factor is our 7 million metric tonnes of storage capacity, 60 percent of which is located at farm-gate level markets. In regions without scientific warehousing, food loss can reach 10 percent. Our internal data shows we limit this to just one percent. This means our storage prevents the wastage of nearly 200,000 metric tonnes of grains.
To produce that volume of grains, farmers would have used around 16,000 metric tonnes of fertilizers and 90 billion liters of water. So, by reducing food loss, we also help conserve significant natural resources. That’s the core of our environmental impact.
Agrotech Space: What about the social impact of Arya.ag’s operations?
Shenoy Mathew: Now, coming to the social aspects—India is an agriculturally significant 0pcountry with a vast rural hinterland. One of the key contributions we make is enabling geographic inclusion, connecting remote communities to mainstream markets.
We work with around 1,200 to 1,500 farmer organizations, most of which are located at the farm gate level—areas typically outside the mainstream economy. By operating in these geographies, we are bringing these underserved communities into the economic fold.
Through these organizations, we engage with nearly 800,000 farmers, 80 percent of whom are small and marginal farmers. Additionally, we directly employ about 3,000 people, both in permanent and seasonal roles. Beyond that, our operations generate indirect employment through roles in security and other support services.
These jobs represent formal employment opportunities for skilled individuals who may not be highly educated. With the training we provide post-recruitment, we equip them with the necessary skills. The majority of these jobs are based in rural areas, contributing significantly to employment formalization. Many of the individuals employed through this model would otherwise remain part of the informal sector.
Agrotech Space: What does sustainability mean for a digital grain commerce platform like Arya.ag, and how does it influence your technology choices?
Shenoy Mathew: From an impact standpoint, our tech-embedded commerce models on the Arya.ag platform play a crucial role in connecting rural buyers and sellers who otherwise lack trust and visibility. For instance, a farmer near Rajkot might hesitate to transact with a buyer in Delhi or Indore due to concerns about quality assurance or payment security, even though there could be a good business proposition between both of them. Our platform bridges this trust gap by enabling these transactions, particularly through farmer agencies in remote areas.
This also leads to significant de-layering. Take the example of an all-women Farmer Producer Company (FPC) in Mathura, where we facilitated the storage of 1,000 metric tonnes of produce from 315 farmers in a local warehouse. Without this, they would have transported their goods to a distant mandi. Our sustainability team estimated that this one instance alone saved around 8,000 liters of diesel. At scale, our commerce model handles 1.2 million metric tonnes of grain worth ₹5,000 crore annually—implying a massive reduction in fuel use and environmental impact.
Additionally, since just before the pandemic—and more aggressively during it—we’ve transitioned to a fully digital, paperless system. All transactions now happen via mobile and digital platforms, saving millions of pages each year, even though we haven’t yet quantified the exact number.
Agrotech Space: How is Arya.ag using AI, machine learning, and predictive tools to improve storage, pricing, and financing for farmers and agro-enterprises?
Shenoy Mathew: There are multiple facets to this, but two key interventions stand out. First, our AI-enabled security systems have made it possible to store produce even in remote locations. These AI cameras, installed across warehouses, detect every movement and trigger alarms for any unusual or suspicious activity, all monitored centrally. This has given us the confidence to operate warehouses as far as 250 kilometers from Guwahati in the Northeast—areas where few businesses function at such scale.
Second, we’ve developed an in-house quality scanner capable of scanning both sides of a grain to accurately assess its quality. This tool is now deployed across many of our warehouses, enabling standardized quality checks right at the farm gate. These technologies have not only made remote storage viable but have also built trust among financial institutions, making it possible to finance produce stored at these locations. This dual impact—geographic and financial inclusion—is a clear example of how technology is integrating remote rural markets into the formal farm economy. So, this is how I would describe the role of technology in driving both geographic and financial inclusion by bringing these remote markets into the mainstream agricultural ecosystem.
Agrotech Space: With over 11,000 storage locations, how is Arya.ag using technology to ensure real-time visibility, traceability, and quality control across such a vast network?
Shenoy Mathew: That’s right. These interventions are being rolled out in a phased manner. It’s not something that can be implemented everywhere instantly—it requires gradual deployment across locations.
Also Read: Digital Backbone of Indian Agriculture: Essential Government Apps, Portals & Services for Farmers
Agrotech Space: What are the main technology barriers that limit farmers’ participation in digital agro-markets, and how is Arya.ag working to overcome them?
Shenoy Mathew: Today, I wouldn’t say there’s a technology literacy barrier in rural areas. If you look at the gig economy—delivery personnel or app-based cab drivers—they’re already adept at using digital tools like transactions and maps. Even among rural women and women farmers, we don’t see a lack of tech access. With nearly 200 strong agrotech companies working across the value chain, the latest technologies are available to farmers. The real question is not access but impact—what is the technology delivering, at what cost, and what value is it adding to the farmer’s life?
Instead of a tech gap, what persists is an information barrier. Although massive datasets are collected by both government and private players, access to that data at an aggregated, usable level is still developing. Multiple central and state initiatives are working on digital stacks and data interoperability, but challenges remain—such as consent, privacy laws, and lack of system integration. So, while technology is largely in place, two key areas still need progress: ensuring meaningful, affordable impact to farmers, and unlocking existing information assets as public goods to avoid duplicating efforts.
Agrotech Space: How have government policies like e-NAM and PM Fasal Bima Yojana influenced Arya.ag’s technology strategy and platform development? You briefly mentioned the role of government initiatives—could you elaborate on how such policies have shaped your approach?
Shenoy Mathew: Government policies have significantly shaped our tech strategy and operations. As the largest stakeholder in the farm ecosystem, both central and state governments have influenced the direction of agrobusiness over the past decade. Arya.ag itself has been around for a little over ten years, and in the last seven years particularly, we’ve seen a strong push towards private-public partnerships. These initiatives have helped reduce wastage, build efficiency, and improve farmer returns.
One notable example is our collaboration with the Uttar Pradesh State Warehousing Corporation. They offered us access to vacant warehouses at discounted rates, facilities that otherwise lay unused. This allowed us to begin storage operations in remote regions, improving last-mile access for farmers while generating revenue for the government from underutilized assets. It’s a clear demonstration of how public-private partnerships can create shared value and operational efficiency.
Agrotech Space: As Arya.ag continues to expand, how do you envision the future of sustainable and inclusive agrotechnology in India?
Shenoy Mathew: If I look at our journey so far, we’ve consistently worked for tomorrow, today. Arya was among the pioneers of farm-gate level storage in India. We’re also currently the largest private-sector Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) in the commodity-based finance space and early movers in innovative commerce models. Over the past decade, we’ve consistently led with forward-thinking initiatives.
In that space, our 60–70 member tech team—led by our CTO and Chief Digital Officer—is actively developing solutions within a vibrant in-house engineering ecosystem. One initiative I’d particularly like to highlight is our focus on building smart farmer institutions. These are farmer organizations that leverage our technology to enhance their production, adopt better pest management practices, and ensure sustainable and transparent farming methods. This integrated use of tech at the grassroots is what we define as a smart farmer institution.
Agrotech Space: Can you elaborate on how Arya.ag is translating the above vision into tangible platforms and services for farmers?
Shenoy Mathew: Last year, our MD announced that Arya.ag would champion the creation of around 200 Smart Farmer Institutions. At a foundational level, this involves front-ending several tech-embedded services for farmers, such as soil testing at the farm gate, drone-based spraying delivered directly to the farmer’s doorstep, and hyperlocal weather information accessible through their mobile apps. To support this vision, we’ve already established 10 Smart Farm Centres.
Our co-founders—all of whom have formal education in agriculture and agrobusiness and have each spent over a decade working in the sector—bring a collective experience of over 50–60 years. With that depth of expertise, we are steering Arya.ag toward building a sustainable trade platform where buyers and sellers can transact directly. The goal is to build a platform where buyers and sellers can seamlessly transact, anchored in traceable and climate-smart agricultural practices.
This vision is taking shape in the form of Prithvi Pro, which we are planning to launch later this year, reflective of our vision to enable transparent, climate-smart, and traceable agro-commerce. It aims to give visibility to produce cultivated using climate-resilient and sustainable methods, such as water-efficient rice, wheat with minimal heavy metal contamination, or crops grown with optimal fertiliser usage. While there are producers committed to these practices and buyers actively seeking such produce, there currently isn’t a marketplace that connects the two.
Prithvi Pro is our answer to that gap. If I may draw from the Prime Minister’s vision of positioning India as a global export hub, we believe it is essential to start adopting world-class practices today and embed them into our operations. That is the direction and ambition guiding our work.
To support Smart Farmer Institutions, we’ve also established 10 Smart Farm Centres that front-end various tech-embedded services, like soil testing at the farm gate, drone-based spraying at farmers’ doorsteps, and localised weather updates through mobile apps. Our MD announced a goal of enabling 200 such institutions this year.
Additionally, we’re preparing to launch Prithvi Pro, a sustainable trade platform that connects buyers and sellers focused on climate-smart and sustainable produce. It aims to offer visibility to products like water-efficient rice, wheat with low heavy metal risk, and optimally fertilised crops, meeting demand from discerning buyers. This marketplace bridges a current gap and aligns with the Prime Minister’s vision of making India an export hub by embedding global standards in our agro-practices today.