The government is aiming to boost investment in post-harvest infrastructure development at farm gates to help farmers handle their produce better and fetch remunerative prices.
To bring in efficiency in the value chain of agriculture and allied sectors, the Narendra Modi government, if elected for a third term, may launch a separate Rs 750-crore fund called Agri-SURE for agri-startups and expedite the implementation of various initiatives such as the agriculture infrastructure fund (AIF) and the integrated scheme for agricultural marketing.
Sources said the Agri-SURE fund aims to help in scaling up of operations of about 85 startups in the next five years with a variable ticket size up to Rs 25 crore each. A separate trust would be set up in Nabventures to register the fund with the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
It would cover startups associated with sectors such as agri-tech, food processing, animal husbandry, fisheries, supply chain management, farm mechanisation, and biotechnology, according to officials.
They said the new government is expected to expedite the implementation of the Rs 1-trillion AIF aimed at creating post-harvest infrastructure at farm gates, aggregation points of primary agricultural cooperative societies, farmer producer organisations, agri-entrepreneurs, startups, etc. All loans under this financing facility will have interest subvention of 3% per annum up to a limit of Rs 2 crore. The subvention will be available for a maximum of seven years.
Under AIF, officials said, around Rs 35,000 crore has been sanctioned for 48,352 projects so far. Major projects sanctioned under it include warehouses, primary processing units, custom hiring centres, sorting and grading units, cold store projects, and assaying units. “We will aim to expedite the fund’s implementation so that infrastructure development at the grassroots could be executed to boost farm incomes,” an official said. The official said that for too long the focus has been on boosting production.
The entire amount of AIF under the plan was to be disbursed between FY21 and FY26, while the support under the fund would be provided till FY33.
The government has also decided to lay emphasis on helping states in creating marketing infrastructure at farm gates through the existing integrated scheme for agricultural marketing. Currently, under the electronic-national agriculture market (e-NAM), 1,361 mandis are integrated and around 18 million farmers have been participating in the online trade of agricultural commodities.
In addition, the government will focus on creating production clusters for specific crops to ensure their better marketing. Officials said a cluster-based approach would help link farmers to the processing units and cut transportation costs.
