Uttar Pradesh will use agtech in a big way to improve its agricultural production, dairy, poultry and fisheries sector. It will provide better market linkages, reduce wastage, improve cold storage infrastructure and ensure better supply to the food processing sector to become a $1 trillion economy by 2028. 

Agriculture will be among the sectors that will be the primary focus of a project undertaken by the State government to achieve its target before the deadline, says Anand Ramanathan, Partner, Deloitte India.

Deloitte India being engaged by the Yogi Adityanath government to play a key role in this effort. “The initial strategy design phase has been approved, and the implementation of various initiatives has officially commenced,” Ramanathan told businessline in an online interaction. 

Farm sector’s contribution

Currently, the northern State is a $240 billion economy with  agriculture contributing $60 billion, including allied areas. Agriculture will have to increase to $250 billion to meet the overall target of the State to become a $1 trillion economy. 

“It is an area where we are collaborating with different stakeholders, including private stakeholders and large multilateral donor agencies, to develop the agriculture sector,” Ramanathan said. 

The consulting firm is working with the agtech players. It is in touch with about 40 agtech firms where Deloitte India feels they will have a big intervention role to play on the production side. 

“If you look at sugarcane. Because it’s tightly controlled, there’s a good understanding of production. But in other areas, it’s all very dated. So can we look at modern techniques to estimate production?” Ramanathan said. 

Data collection

Agtech companies will be relied up on to do scientific crop surveys, better collection of data to avoid leakage and  increase farmers’ income. 

“We are enabling the agtech companies in the collection of various data on crops. These players give inputs and collect the output in conjunction with the farmer producer organisations (FPOs). District by district, we’ve identified what is the potential for better farmer realisation if we have some of these agtech players partnering to buy the output,” he said. 

Agtech companies will make a big difference with agricultural production expected to increase by 10-15 per cent and farm incomes by 5-10 per cent through better tech deployment.   

Agtech will be used for better weather monitoring, forecast, understanding insurance, enabling better compensation, precision agriculture and providing better market linkages to farmers. Crop surveys can be done through drone technology and machine learning, while artificial intelligence can be used to estimate prices.   

Fillip for food processing

Among the allied sectors food processing is a primary target. “We’ve broken our plans into five broad areas,” the Deloitte India partner said.

The food processing sector, a part of the industry, is being looked at from an agriculture lens as units are dependent on farm produce. “We have developed individual targets for each of these different spaces. Deloitte has identified about 70-odd opportunities. And if you look at the big opportunities, one big area is how we can look at productivity in agriculture,” he said.

One of the focus areas in agriculture will be dairy and fisheries. “UP is the largest producer of milk but a majority of the production falls under the unorganised sector,” he said

Therefore, the objective is to make the private sector play an important role and get the industry organised to bring in more value-addition,” Ramanathan said.

UP is a large importer of poultry products and fish, most of which come from Bengal. “We are looking at whether the State can become a net exporter in some of these areas,” he said. 

Opportunity for dairy sector

On the dairy front, there is a big opportunity in using techniques to get more female calves so that the issue of stray animals can be controlled. The State has enhanced its subsidy towards this and it will result in higher productivity.  

“As part of this, we are working with private dairies, all local players who have excellent collection infrastructure. So our view is can we again look at these private players collecting milk from the farmer and getting all of this milk into the organised side of the business to produce more value-added products such as ghee and butter,” he said. 

Deloitte India is working on a 3-way process that involves co-operatives, private dairies and the farmer. The idea is to make them work together to ensure efficiency in terms of milk procurement. 

On the fisheries front, Deloitte India and the Uttar Pradesh government are looking at all ponds. There are a lot of inland ponds and one of the big efforts will be to first map them. 

Mapping ponds via agtech

“Again, agtech is being used to map where these ponds are and what is the potential of rearing fish in them using intensification techniques where you can get more output. Now, the process is the whole pond is auctioned off to a certain player. But can we have a more rigorous process wherein we hold them accountable for reaching a certain level of output,” Ramanathan said.  

Restructuring in existing fisheries arrangements is one big area for development. This will include development of hatcheries and seed for fisheries. The State will make investments where research and development on local fishes will help identify what should be done to strengthen  the inputs for the sector. 

The main area of focus in the poultry sector will be to enable more micro clusters than big food parks. This will help set up a small feed mill or dairy or storage space.  

The State has a vibrant sugar economy. “If you look at sugar, it’s actually now thriving because of biodiesel and the energy side of sugarcane cultivation. Therefore, the focus will be how do you grow them through value-added production and ensure that farmers get their MSPs (minimum support prices) and all the sick mills can recover. Most of them have been revived and they’re doing well because of energy,” the Deloitte India partner said. 

Setting up seed parks

One of the challenges in ensuring good yield is getting the right quality seeds. “We are looking at setting up seed parks where farmers will get access to the latest hybrid varieties as well as local ones, depending on their requirements. The seeds will be distributed through the government machinery,” Ramanathan said. 

Uttar Pradesh has about 75,000 employees in the agriculture sector, including horticulture, on the government’s side to ensure these issues work effectively. 

Deloitte India is taking models from other parts of the world, including China, to make knowledge available to farmers on the latest cultivation practices and inputs that can help in better production and higher yield. 

The millets being the current focus in the country, a campaign for the nutri-cereals has been launched in Bundelkhand. This is because millets are considered native to the region. The focus is to try and make the State self-sufficient to meet poultry feed demand. 

Bundelkhand’s advantage is it has borders with western and Eastern UP and, therefore, the crop can be made available to other States for feed production.

Uttar Pradesh will also be looking to provide better processing facilities, including basic grading and sorting, to encourage higher production of pulses. 

Crop insurance

“The learning is from Maharashtra, which houses about 160 of the 201-odd package houses in the country. UP will try to replicate Maharashtra’s success in grapes and other fruits for mangoes,” Ramanathan said. 

Uttar Pradesh has popular mango varieties such as Dasheri, Langda and Chausa. Efforts will be first to export it to other States first and then abroad. 

With the monsoon and weather playing truant over the past few years, crop insurance will play a major role. “We are working with different donor agencies to improve the crop insurance ecosystem. We will see how we can take advantage of building private space and look at microfinance players to increase crop insurance,” the Deloitte India partner said. 

In particular, the project will look at setting up micro cold storages to prevent wastage of fresh produce. This will help come up with cold storage of say, 12 feet by 12 feet, not just on farms but at the market place too, he said.

“We are moving away from that whole concept of mega food processing to building micro clusters. Also, one district, one product has been identified for all food categories and the ecosystem for them.”   

Investor-friendly

At the same time, market linkage will be built through agtech firms to export amla products to other parts of the country. In every district, similar efforts will be made to identify similar produce. 

Global best practices where there are value chains that specialise in one crop will be followed the way New Zealand has done for the Kiwi fruit. Efforts will be made to replicate it for guavas and bananas.

Efforts will also be to brand Uttar Pradesh as investment-friendly in view of its people’s skill, better law and order and other attractive options such as water, Ramanathan said. 

Deloitte India has worked with many States but this is the first time it is working at such a scale.  

The consultancy firm has submitted its strategy and the implementation has begun. It has some three-and-a-half years to make things happen.  

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