IoTechWorld and Syngenta have already undertaken the drone Yatra in 13 states, demonstrating the benefits of agriculture drones to over 1 lakh farmers across a 17,000-kilometer route.
A joint pilot project using actual agrochemicals has already been completed in Ludhiana, Punjab, where farmers and agri-entrepreneurs were enlightened on the benefits of using drone technology in agrochemical spraying.
Providing details about the plan, Co-Founders of IoTechWorld Deepak Bhardwaj & Anoop Upadhyay said, “We have joined hands with Syngenta India to facilitate drone spraying across India. We did a pilot in the state of Punjab and the response has been very encouraging. As a next step, both the companies jointly plan to amplify the activities in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh & West Bengal. The idea is to highlight the benefits of spraying using drones to farmers and other stakeholders.”
“Our association is unique in many ways. While our product Agribot is India’s first DGCA-type certified company, Syngenta is the first private company to get approval from the Central Insecticides Board, Government of India to use drones for spraying of its Crop Protection products in crops like Paddy, Wheat, Sugarcane, Potato, Hot pepper etc. It is thus natural for consumers including farmers and agri-entrepreneurs to have faith in our joint initiatives,” both co-founders added.
Providing details on the business model, Saurabh Srivastava, General Manager - Sales of IoTechWorld Avigation, & Mahantesh Chulaki – Lead Operations, Syngenta India, said, the idea of this sustainable cluster based DaaS business model is liked by many agritech & startups firms as it gives the surety of YOY spray demand from Syngenta which mitigate the risk of capital investment of drone service provider.
Even the financial institutions like SBI who are providing the capital loan up to 2Cr through AIF scheme of GOI, also very confident to disburse the loan as their risk is mitigated through assured business demand offered by Syngenta.
The State bank of India has already disbursed the AIF loans to drone service providers in Haryana, Maharashtra, Telangana, Haryana & Madhya Pradesh for this DaaS Model developed by IoTechWorld & Syngenta.
It is pertinent to mention that both Syngenta India and IoTechWorld Avigation have recently joined hands to facilitate the introduction of drone spraying across India. Under this agreement, the two partners will collectively work towards harnessing their strengths to promote the spray of Syngenta-approved chemicals using the drone technology of IoTechWorld. Besides, both companies will also work on creating employment opportunities for rural youth by training and preparing them for using drone technology.
