2022- Focus will be on agritech, processing and entrepreneurship

The year 2022 will witness spectacular growth in agriculture. United Nations is celebrating 2022 as the year of aquaculture and fisheries. The sector which has been badly affected by Covid 19 disruptions will try to regain precovid growth. Focus areas include increase in production, productivity, diversification, processing, horticulture, automation, entrepreneurship, use of technologies and promotion of exports. Agritech sector will show robust growth through establishing more numbers of startups in agriculture. Digitalization will augment the processes in agri startups and will facilitate to develop new delivery models. These startups will make use of technologies like artificial intelligence, internet of things, smart farming, sensor-based farming, precision farming, drones, agri analytics and big data analytics. Lot of innovations will emerge during 2022.

There will be a paradigm shift in agriculture towards agribusiness, food processing and food retail. Of the total retail market, 70 percent will be food retail. Opportunities for ready to cook and ready to eat food segment will achieve substantial growth. Online food retail will exhibit 17 percent growth in 2022. More number of farmer producer organizations will be established in agriculture and allied sectors during the year.

Agri entrepreneurship will focus market centered production programmes and new delivery models with the use of advance technologies. There will be emergence of new platform models for developing input-output linkage. These linkages will ensure supply of raw materials and marketing of products. Artificial intelligence, image-based crop quality monitoring, precision farming, farm management, agri finance, insurance, farm advisory services, automation, geographic information system and hydroponics will exhibit marked growth.

In tune with the growth in digitalization, there will be substantial increase in monitoring of food production systems through traceability, quality control systems and supply chain systems.

As a sequel to UN climate summit held at Glasgow COP 26, climate resilient and mitigation technologies, measures to reduce green house gases will acquire momentum in 2022. New supplements, vegan food products, innovative food brands and products which can boost immunity will acquire more market share during 2022.

Robotics, sustainable development, waste management, vegetable-based food products and low alcoholic drinks will acquire more growth during 2022. Agri robot market will attain 30 percent growth by 2025.  Food grain and horticulture will exhibit 2 percent growth in production during 2022. Processed food market will allow 100 percent foreign direct investment. Focus will be on market centered processing through ensuring appropriate supply chain ecosystems. Allocation for transfer of technologies and agriculture research will be more during 2022.  

Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan, Former Director( Entrepreneurship), KVASU