The power of data to drive
resilient agriculture in india.
India is one of the world’s largest food producers. India produces 315 million tons of horticulture products in an area of approximately 26 million hectares, where nearly 80% of the farmers are small holders with less than a hectare of land.
Agriculture plays a vital role in the Indian economy and India’s rural population is particularly dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. 70% of India’s rural population are farmers and 73% of the rural women workforce is part of the agricultural sector.
of India's rural
population are
farmers.
of the rural women
workforce is part of
the agricultural sector.
of India's farmers are
small holders with
< 2 hectares of land.
However, 25% to 35% percent of food that is produced is wasted due to lack of proper refrigeration and other supply chain bottlenecks. There is a 90% deficit of cold storage facilities in India.
Moreover, farmers lose another part of their income by selling their produce at the wrong price at the wrong time. Most of the existing solutions for harvest expertise and market intelligence are closed-access and not inclusive to smallholder farmers in developing countries. This lack of data results in 68% of the crops being sold below the market prices in India.
Deficit of cold
storage facilities
billion worth of produce
wasted annually.
million tons of produce
wasted annually.
of the crops are sold below
the market prices in India
BASE (the Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy) and Empa (the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) have developed Coldtivate, a free-to-use, data science-driven mobile application to enable smallholders to optimise their decisions on produce management and to gain access to sustainable cooling.
Access
to cooling
Servitisation business model to access cooling storages:
- Service providers own, maintain and operate the cooling facilities.
- Farmers just pay for the service of keeping produce cool.
Access
to data
Real-time instructions to guide farmers on:
- How to optimise storage of products to minimise food loss.
- When to sell their produce to maximise market value.
Benefit 200 - 500
smallholder farmers
Increase of yearly
income by 30%
Decrease of food
loss by 20%
Decrease of GHG
emissions by 50%
An association
of change-makers
