National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) on Friday announced the launch of ‘Agri-Sure’ – a ₹750 crore agriculture fund for start-ups and rural enterprises.
At a stakeholder meeting in Mumbai, the fund was announced by NabVentures, a subsidiary of NABARD, with an initial corpus of ₹750 crore. The fund is structured to support around 85 agriculture start-ups with an investment size of up to ₹25 crore by the end of its tenure. It will provide direct equity support to start-ups along with investments in sector-specific, sector-agnostic and debt alternative investment funds (AIFs).
NABARD and the Agriculture Ministry will contribute ₹250 crore each to the fund and the remaining amount will be raised from other institutions. The launch of the fund aims to promote investment in innovative, technology-driven, high-risk and high-impact activities in agriculture and allied sectors.
The stakeholder event in Mumbai was attended by AK Sahu, Joint Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, NABARD Chairman Shaji KV, NABARD DMD Govardhan Singh Rawat and NABARD DMD Ajay Kumar Sood.
focus areas
The focus areas of Agri-Sure include promoting innovative, technology-driven initiatives in agriculture, enhancing agricultural produce value chains, creating new rural ecosystem linkages and infrastructure, generating employment and supporting Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). Doing is involved. Additionally, the fund aims to encourage entrepreneurship, sustainable growth and development in the agriculture sector through IT-based solutions and machinery rental services for farmers, NABARD said in a statement.
AK Sahu, Joint Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, said, “The broad objective of this initiative is to address the issues of agriculture and rural sector. We need innovation and technology to ensure last mile delivery of resources. Most of our farmers have small pieces of land, in this ecosystem we need to focus on increasing productivity, this is where technology can play an important role. We need to foster an ecosystem for systematic mechanization to achieve our objectives. Agri-Sure is a huge leap in that direction. With this fund, we aim to help start-ups provide innovative and sustainable solutions.”
NABARD Chairman Shaji KV said, “Digitalisation of agriculture to enhance the agricultural value chain is the need of the hour as the next wave of growth will come from innovation. Fintech innovation in agriculture is one of the important aspects for last mile connectivity with minimum expenses. Farmers are the foundation of agricultural value and need to be handled very closely and provided solutions. Loan alone will not solve the problems of the agriculture sector. The next level of growth will come from innovations that require co-partnership of public and private institutions. Our goal with this fund is to support early-stage innovators and provide viable, sustainable and sustainable technology solutions to farmers.
Underscoring its commitment to promote innovation, NABARD also launched AgriSure Greenathon 2024. The hackathon aims to address three key problems: “Smart Agriculture on a Budget”, which tackles the high cost of advanced agricultural technologies that poses a barrier to small and marginal farmers; “Transforming Agro-Waste into Profitable Business Opportunities,” focusing on converting agricultural waste into profitable enterprises; and “Technological solutions that make regenerative agriculture profitable”, which aims to overcome economic barriers to the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices. NABARD calls for participation from young innovative minds to contribute in our country’s journey towards ‘Developed India’ with their innovative solutions to mitigate the difficult issues of agriculture.
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