Samunnati, an agri value chain enabler has announced its support to the Integrated Agri Blockchain platform created by University of Hyderabad team with Synchrony IT as the funding partner and Social Education Economical Development Society (SEEDS) as the deployment partner.
The aim of this Integrated Agri Blockchain, which is centered around the FPOs and farmer members, is to leverage the power of AI and ML based technologies to connect farmers with vendors, food processors, and packaging firms, allowing buyers and sellers to interact without an intermediary in a secure and trusted environment. Prof. Vijaya Marisetty and Prof. Varsha Mamidi from the University of Hyderabad are the co-founders of this initiative, titled: Inclusive Growth Chain.
Speaking on the launch of this platform, Anil Kumar SG, Founder and CEO, Samunnati said, “Being a part of such an integrated blockchain technology is a new, but a very important step for Samunnati in its vision to make markets work for the smallholder farmers. Through our partnership with the University of Hyderabad, SEEDS and Synchrony, we are trying to push the technological boundaries and level the information asymmetry in the agri value chain by directing the players and institutions in the agri ecosystem to a single platform. This will help them avail and understand the data and information that is already available by making it easily accessible on a common platform.”
In line with Samunnati’s vision of making markets work for smallholder farmers, solving the challenges faced by them is a prerequisite. The blockchain project aims to bring the entire agri ecosystem, from farmers to financing experts to a single platform, thereby simplifying the exchange of information by reducing the level of information asymmetry and easing the manner of transaction.
This platform will increase the transparency for all the stakeholders involved and facilitate the collection of reliable data by recording every step in a product’s value chain.
The reliable data of the farming process is essential to develop data-driven facilities for making farming more efficient and less vulnerable. It also eliminates the requirement for intermediaries to be paid out of farmers’ margins, thereby increasing their profit portion. Further, it will improve asset traceability, provide accurate data on farmers’ input requirements to input suppliers, and inventory data to output providers. Overall, the integrated agri blockchain platform will help in increasing the future cash flow predictions, enabling lenders to purchase inputs on behalf of the farmers’ and provide trade finance to farmers.
The event was graced by the presence of eminent personalities from the agri ecosystem including Dr. G.R. Chintala, Chairman of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD); Meghanath Reddy, IAS, District Collector, Virudhunagar District, TN; Professor Vijay Marisetty, University of Hyderabad and the Co-Founder of Inclusive Growth Chain and Pravesh Sharma, Director of Samunnati Agro, among others.
While delivering the keynote address Dr. G.R. Chintala, Chairman, NABARD), said “The blockchain technology is going to be a game-changer in the agri ecosystem. Everyone in the supply chain from the farmers, input suppliers, the credit suppliers, equipment hirers to the processors, warehouse managers, etc. can now log into the platform and gain benefits from the initiative. The FPOs can now avail the data from the platform which makes it very easy for them to submit all the returns. Also, people can now quickly get the details on who is producing/supplying what as well as the quality controls on a single platform now.”
