Union Budget 2023: FM sows digital public infrastructure plan for agriculture

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This also comes after the government noted a spike in private equity (PE) investments in agritech over the past four years in the economic survey at a time when the rising demand for quality food, and macro tailwinds like climate change and food security concerns trigger renewed investor interest in the nascent sector.

According to the survey, the increase in private equity investments aggregates about Rs 6,600 crore annually.

"With the Union Budget 2023, the Centre has continued their strong focus on improving farmer incomes. The concrete provisions for boosting high-value crops and allied sub-sectors with significant budget outlay are most welcome. Finally, the agritech sector will benefit hugely from open-source digital public agri infrastructure as well as from the promised Agricultural Accelerator Fund," said Mark Kahn, managing partner, Omnivore.

Moneycontrol earlier reported how with private equity and venture capital investors shifting focus towards profitability, biggies in sectors like edtech, e-commerce, and fintech – the poster boys of 2021’s startup bash, had to take a step back to re-evaluate their strategies and align themselves to the fundamentals.

Meanwhile, for the agritech ecosystem that witnessed valuations shooting up and continued funding with unwavering investor interest, there seems to be no end to the party.

“It is encouraging to see the Union Budget 2023 be a pro-farmer budget, placing focus on technology’s role in farming. The newly announced agriculture accelerator fund and the digital public infrastructure empowers and democratises the Indian agri ecosystem (startups, businesses, farmers, etc) to work more collaboratively and find farmer-centric solutions together. We are confident that this Union Budget 2023 lends an impetus for greater adoption of technology & data in Indian farming,” said Shailendra Tiwari, founder of agritech startup, Fasal.