Page 50 - Abhivruddhi

times more price to the product which is necessary to be incorporated in
the agricultural practices.
• Farmer- Broker- Market (shops/Malls)- Customer
Same is true in the second chain. The price of the produce is decided
by the broker which is further elevated by others in the chain. In both
the cases end users are paying cost (almost 2-3 times). As a result, farmer
gets marginal profit in both the cases. As end users have less quality
perception, unorganized sector (almost 75% manufacturing without
approvals of regulatory bodies) for biofertilizers/ biopesticides is affecting
the quality of the products. Furthermore, for ‘rural livelihood’ number of
consultants promote Do It Yourself (DIY) processes for vermicompost,
and production of microbials as biofertilizers and biopesticides. As
there are no methods used to check the quality of the products, their
effectiveness is questionable. Secondly this will hamper the progress
towards the ‘modern business establishment’ in agriculture.

Epilogue
The farmers are facing problems of uncertainty in climatic conditions,
and other natural calamities still they are taking huge risk. Therefore, it
is indeed necessary to introduce modern knowledge- based technologies
in farming and farm management, real time advice to the grower, digital
marketing and to avoid unorganised sectors which produce spurious
products. The technologies like hydroponics (growing plants without
soil), vertical farming, use of artificial intelligence and others can be
future of agriculture to maintain its position as leading industry in Indian
economy.

Acknowledgement
I am thankful to Mr. V N Rao, Former Executive, HDFC Bank and Dr.
Santosh Tupe, Director, Greenvention Biotech Pvt. Ltd., Uruli- Kanchan
for their valuable comments and suggestions.

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