March 2021 agricultural “platforms” in a digital era

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THE IMPORTANCE OF A FAVORABLE ENABLING ECOSYSTEM: 
LESSONS FROM INDIA AND KENYA
INDIA
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The Indian agricultural tech market is unique and large, with over 600 active tech start-ups and over USD 1.7 billion of deals 
between 2014 and 2019. India-based Digital Platforms that we profiled serve, on average, over 700,000 farmers—nearly six 
times more than the average African Digital Platform. We identify four drivers of this relatively high activity and maturity:
Scale of the opportunity 
As a market, India represents a huge opportunity for Platforms: the country is home to 146 million farms, 166 million hectares 
of arable land, a total population of 1.3 billion, and 43% of its workforce is employed in agriculture. On the demand side, 
population growth, urbanization, and increasing prosperity create a need for transformation of the agricultural sector. This is 
complemented on the supply side by the proliferation of small farms with productivity rates well below their potential. The 
public extension system does not have the capacity or resources to meet the growing needs of farmers. At the same time, 
many of the challenges in the sector (e.g., inefficiency in supply chains, information asymmetries) lend themselves well to
Platform solutions.
Public sector support for agricultural tech start-ups 
At both the central and state government levels, there is a heavy focus on supporting agricultural tech start-ups. The central 
government aims to double farmer incomes by 2022, and a key part of its strategy is to promote entrepreneurship by reducing 
regulatory barriers, facilitating learning and development, promoting collaboration, and providing a number of incentive schemes to 
start-ups. Since 2016, when the central government launched the Startup India initiative, the majority of Indian states have actively 
started supporting agricultural tech start-ups.