BL Agro Group launches agri value chain to support farmers and agribusiness, making UP self-reliant and sufficient state

Noida

BL Agro Group, which comprises agritech company Leads Connect Services, Rohilkhand Laboratory & Research Centre (RLRC), FMCG company BL Agro Industries and food commodity trading and export house Laxmi Agro, launched "Khet Se Kitchen Tak" solution at the India Food Expo held in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

As the agri sector desperately needs to improve productivity and sustainability, this farm-to-fork solution offers just that. It creates market linkages throughout the agri value chain by clubbing the services provided by subsidiaries of the BL Agro corporate umbrella.

The three-day event from November 2 to 4 was inaugurated by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the presence of Union Minister of State for MSME Bhanu Pratap Verma.

All the services offered by all the group companies were displayed during the trade fair. A live demo was given for both Vtol and Agri drones to Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak and Kapil Dev Agarwal, Minister of State for Vocational Education and Skill Development in Uttar Pradesh. Navneet Ravikar, CMD, Leads Connect Services, briefed them about the initiative and gave them a first-hand experience of flying drones.

Four entities are synergizing the “Khet Se Kitchen Tak” initiative to provide full-stack solutions to ease problems for farmers, FPOs and agribusinesses. Leads Connect Services provides precision farm advisory, financial and crop risk management to the agriculture community; RLRC provides critical food testing, assaying and certification facilities to agri-businesses at the farm gates; and BL Agro and Laxmi Agro provide market linkage, bringing finely curated, packed quality food material to consumers' kitchens through its extensive network of distributors pan India.

Leads Connect Services, a data, risk management, and financial services agritech company, is the foundational block of the initiative. 

Apart from increasing yield efficiency, Leads Connect offers digitalization and end-to-end analytics, including geospatial, SpaceTech and Drone as a Service (DrAAS) for precision farming.

Leads Connect has created a unified platform called Agrani, which is a digital database of farmers that stakeholders can access through analytical dashboards. It has created two apps — Agrani app for farmers and Agrani Saathi for FPO, agribusinesses and VLEs (Village Level Entrepreneurs) — and plans to set up brick-and-mortar Agrani centres throughout Uttar Pradesh, bringing the farm advisory, financial services and market linkage to the doorstep of farmers/agri-businesses.

Ghanshyam Khandelwal, Chairman, BL Agro, says, "UP stands on a precipice. To achieve the vision of converting it into a trillion-dollar economy, we need to fuel its agriculture and food processing engine. That’s what makes us so excited and determined to build a sustainable and linked agri-ecosystem within the state. At its base, Khet Se Kitchen Tak is about supporting farmers and agribusiness, but if you zoom out, the initiative is about making UP a self-reliant and sufficient state that doesn’t depend on anyone during any stage of the agri value chain. While the initiative encompasses all food products from pulses to oil, we will be putting the spotlight on millets like ragi, jowar, and bajra as 2023 is the International Year of Millets."

"The changing global demands are outpacing what our current agricultural and food systems can achieve," comments Navneet Ravikar, CMD, Leads Connect Services. "Currently, over 50 per cent of India’s population depends upon agriculture to put food on the table. Yet, the sector contributes merely 20% per cent of the national GDP. All these are signals of the dire necessity of a digital transformation, which is why we are fixated on building technologies that can drive the Khet Se Kitchen Tak initiative. Our objective is to bring the consequent benefits to every acre of farmland and stakeholder in the value chain."

"The agri sector desperately needs to improve productivity and sustainability and the initiative delivers just that. Through our services, we’ll be helping different stakeholders grow more resilient and high-yielding crops. While it encompasses all food products from pulses to oil, we will be putting the spotlight on millets like ragi, jowar and bajra as 2023 is the International Year of Millets,” explains Dr Prachi Srivastava, Quality Manager, RLRC.

In addition to bridging the gap between farmers and customers, the project will expand the food product distribution network for farmers and other stakeholders in both domestic and international markets.