Budget 2023: Agriculture accelerator fund to increase productivity

“The Fund of Government (FoF) strategy has already shown success with SIDBI Index Fund as well as SRI,” said Utkarsh Sinha, managing director of Bexley Advisors, a boutique investment banking firm. The expansion of this model in new industries such as agriculture (and hopefully manufacturing) will bring positive results and accelerate the formation of funds and investments focused on agriculture.”

Private investment in India’s agriculture sector is a two-part equation. While we need smaller budgets that can embrace innovative technologies like hydroponics, vertical farming, etc., we just as much need budgets that can write the big checks that can bring some of these technologies to scale. Utkaresh Sinha said, “Growth and capital is lacking at the Kate stage in agriculture and this FoF can provide an incentive for that.”

Kanshek Maheshwari, Co-Founder, Primus Partners said, “Agriculture Accelerator Fund is a great initiative towards streamlining the rural economy and spreading innovation from the hinterland of India. Learning should be learned from the experience of implementing various start-up funds already created by the government. be extracted.”

Nilaya Varma, co-founder and CEO of Primus Partners, said, “Bringing technology into agriculture is critical to long-term economic growth, improved productivity and job creation. This will ensure that India and Bharat grow together. The budget goal is welcome. However, implementation is key and for this initiative to be successful, we need to ensure that partnership is ensured between farmers, FPOs, SHGs, Agri startups and most importantly agricultural research institutes and universities.

Adarsh ​​Sharma, Managing Director, Primus Partners, said: “The cost of capital investment will increase by 33%, supporting industry demand and demonstrating the governments’ strong determination to boost private investment in the country’s infrastructure development narrative.”

Dhruv Sawhney, Chief Executive Officer and Commercial Director, Nurture.farm said, “This is a positive and welcome move by the government to foster, encourage and enable entrepreneurship in agriculture. This will lead to the development of new business models and innovations that will drive digital adoption as well as support and technology advancement for farmers in India.”

SOUMYAK BISWAS, Partner – Managing Consultant, BDO India said, “Agri Accelerator Fund is a welcome move for the agriculture sector. It will act as a catalyst to stimulate growth in the agri-tech ecosystem and address several critical challenges in the value chain related to linkages It handles input and output, precision farming, ensuring traceability and production quality, higher value addition, etc. This not only promotes entrepreneurship and job creation in the sector, but also unlocks value in the agribusiness value chain that In turn, it increases the profitability of farmers and is a right step towards achieving the vision of doubling farmers’ income.

Sanjay Chhabria, Director, Nexdigm said, “Agri Accelerator Fund is created to encourage agri startups by young entrepreneurs! Agriculture credit to be increased by 20 million crores. Steps to boost more businesses, ideas and entrepreneurs to drive more growth in agriculture sector. “

Anirudh A Damani, Artha Venture Fund – Managing Partner said, “It is exciting to learn about the government’s intention to launch the Agriculture Accelerator Fund. I look forward to more details on how the fund will perform. Such a fund can provide a supportive environment that can help AgriTech startups grow faster by providing them with resources, exposure and opportunities to succeed. Through this effort, the government can provide more support to these startups, from seed funding and mentoring programs to infrastructure subsidies and proper market access. This whole exercise will strengthen the already existing efforts of this government to promote entrepreneurial spirit in rural areas. “From Artha’s perspective, we are underserved in AgriTech and this initiative reinforces our overall desire to support AgriTech startups with more of our own funding.”