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Bayer India has roped in agritech platform Agribazaar as an alliance partner for ‘Better Life Farming’ projects in India. Agribazaar will provide market linkages to small-holder farmers through its e-market place and help farmers get better prices for their produce. Bayer will also work independently with Agribazaar to improve access of crop advisory and enable transfer of agri technologies to small-holder farmers.
Simon Wiebusch, Chief Operating Officer, Bayer’s crop science division in India, said when farmers get the right remunerative prices for their produce, they are encouraged to adopt good agricultural practices and can afford modern agricultural technologies.
However, he said no company can achieve this change alone, as it requires the right eco-system and meaningful collaborations along the agri value chain.
With Agribazaar, Bayer aims to enhance its reach to small-holder farmers and offer personalised solutions, enabling them to achieve better harvests more sustainably, he added.
Amith Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO of Agribazaar, said the digital platform, along with Bayer’s expertise in providing crop advisory and inputs, will help address Indian farmers’ problem of timely availability of advisory, inputs, price discovery, crop traceability and quality assurance.
This partnership will help both buyers and sellers transact in a transparent and trusted ecosystem, providing integrated, cost-effective and timely solutions, he said.
Bayer is also working with a network of small-holder farmers who practice agri-entrepreneurship under its Better Life Farming projects for rice, corn and horticulture crops. With its growing network of agri-entrepreneurs, Bayer aims to serve 25 lakh small-holder farmers across India by 2025.
Most farmers in India are small-holder farmers who farm on less than two acres of land. These farmers are vulnerable to challenges such as pests and crop diseases, lack of finance, adverse climate impacts, irrigation management, rural migration and fluctuating commodity prices.
In 2018, Bayer formed the Better Life Farming alliance that brought together global and local partners across the agri value chain to help small-holder farmers unlock their farming potential. In India, the Better Life Farming alliance is led by Bayer, International Finance Corporation (IFC, a member of the World Bank Group), Netafim, Yara Fertilisers, DeHaat and Big Basket.