Nearly 90% of farmers are small and marginal. The average size of a farm is now just 1.15 hectares(ha). 85% of land ownership is of less than 2 ha, only 5% farmers operate on land bigger than 4 ha.
Modern farm technologies are now accessible in India, but only to a select few. These include companies likeTrimble Inc.'s Greenseeker, an algorithm-based hand device that can instantly read soil nutrient levels, and Farm Management Software and Apps of the big players of Agrivi, Cropin and others.
“In a nation where farm incomes are only around one-third of those of non-agricultural households, technology should be embraced.”
However, less than 1% of people actively use these devices. Experts identify a strange issue. Data indicates that high-tech has rapidly diffused in the manufacturing sector, a process known as technology diffusion. For instance, 69% of the current employment in India are under threat from automation, according to figures from the World Bank quoted by its president Jim Yong Kim in a speech in 2016.
According to economists, most land units (plots) are too tiny, which hinders long-term productivity development and keeps innovation in agriculture bottled up at the top.
The earliest winners have been farmers who have been able to pool their holdings and expand their farms to at least 100–200 acres. Due to this, exclusive organizations known as farmer producer organizations have emerged.
With the exception of high-yielding seeds and genetically modified BT Cotton, which was launched in 2002 and helped India become the world's second-largest exporter of cotton, India has not had a really forward-thinking technology since the Green Revolution of the 1960s.
The drawback of this new generation of technology is that in order to provide economies of scale, or lower costs per unit as output increases, they require enormous farms.
"The biggest issue with technological spread (in agriculture) is the limited land holdings, which make it useless to even use a tractor. Second, all of our technology, such as high-yielding seeds, are designed for irrigated fields even though 48% of our cultivated area is dryland (areas not covered by irrigation), according to K Mani, director of agricultural economics at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
India's farmers are in dire need of technology. According to the most recent assessment by the OCED and the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, "cultivable acreage is nearing its limitations, therefore yield increases are a must" (ICRIER). Indian wheat and rice yields are almost three times lower than the highest levels worldwide.
The growing rate of land ownership or operational land holdings fragmentation is a major problem for tech diffusion, according to Mani. Farmers in close to 90% of cases are marginal and tiny. Currently, a farm only occupies 1.15 hectares on average. According to the 2016 Agricultural Census, 45% of the total cultivated area and 85% of land ownership are on parcels less than 2 hectares. Comparatively, just 5% of farmers work on lots that are bigger than 4 hectares.
Large agribusinesses rather than individual farmers are frequently the ones utilizing smart technology. Agricultural lending firms, like the Mumbai-based Netafim Agricultural Financing Agency (NAFA), the farm credit division of the Israeli drip irrigation giant Netafim, employ some of these technologies for risk management.
One of NAFA's executives, who asked to remain anonymous, claimed the organization utilizes the software as a service platform called Smartfarm from Bengaluru-based CropIn Technology. Large farms are mapped out by SmartFarm, which then scans every square inch of crops through satellite once every ten days. Thus, he explained, NAFA can predict yields, maturation dates, and even maintain tabs on a farmer's sales revenue.
To keep their goods inexpensive, Trimble Inc., a US multinational organization that offers precision agricultural instruments, partners with companies who rent out farm machinery. Its goods include land-leveling machinery with laser control that aids in distributing water evenly over a farm.
A method for scheduling irrigation times is available from Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions. It may be accessed via mobile and online apps that are hosted on business clouds.
The highest and middlemost Indian farms are Trimble's primary priorities. According to managing director Rajan Aiyer, "About 20-30% of large and medium farmers control 70-80% of the land, and those farmers are our primary focus.
