Business Analytics in Agriculture: Emerging Practices and Research Issues| Best MBA colleges in Bangalore

Posted by Dr.Samiya Mubeen On 05/01/2022 12:11:58

Agricultural businesses face several critical challenges today posed by a growing population, poor socioeconomic status of farmers in much of the world, and increasing environmental and sustainability concerns. These challenges are inherently related to analytics in farm-to-fork operations and supply chains, and as such, analytics can provide effective solutions for important problems in this industry. Best MBA colleges in Bangalore

This article has three objectives: 

  1. synthesize the benefits of analytics for various stakeholders (e.g., farmers, processors) throughout the entire agricultural supply chain, and illustrate success stories from the industry; 
  2. collate data and their sources on a digital platform we created for effective use of analytics in agriculture; 
  3. present fruitful directions for analytics to benefit the agriculture industry.

?Emerging Trends in Agriculture & Future of Indian Agriculture

Indian agriculture production has increased with time due to the latest trends in India. It has made us self-reliant and prevented us from becoming a begging bowl for food as a net exporter of agriculture and other products after independence. As per the Second Advance Estimates for 2019-20, the total country’s foodgrain production is estimated to be a record 291.95 million tonnes. It is good news, but the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) forecasts that the demand for food grains will increase to 345 million tonnes by 2030. These all things are happening because of agriculture trends. Recent trends in Indian agriculture mean new technologies and developments in recent years in the agriculture sector. 

Emerging Trends in Indian Agriculture are:

1. Increase Food Production

Indian agriculture has seen a dramatic increase in food production since introducing new technologies like the Green Revolution in agriculture practices. An annual growth rate of 2.08% was recorded during the 1970s. An annual growth rate of 3.5% was recorded in food grains in 1980. These growth rates in food grains is a hallmark of the Green Revolution which enabled India to become self-sufficient in food grains and even a marginal exporter. 

2. Agricultural Diversification

Agriculture not only completes the demand for food grains, but it is also fulfilling other development needs. In recent years, the farming industry has been diversified to produce commercial and horticultural crops such as fruits, vegetables, spices, cashew, areca nut, coconut, and flour products such as flowers, orchids, dairy, animal husbandry, and products.

3. Emerging Trend in Horticulture Production

India is considered the largest producer of fruits and the second-largest vegetable producer. The diversity of geographical, climatic, and soil features enable India to grow a large variety of horticultural crops, including fruits, vegetables, spices, cashew, coconut, cocoa, areca nut, root and tuber crops, medicinal and aromatic plants, etc. 

Challenges

Three agriculture sector challenges will be important to India’s overall development and the improved welfare of its rural poor:

1. Raising agricultural productivity per unit of land: Raising productivity per unit of land will need to be the main engine of agricultural growth as virtually all cultivable land is farmed. Water resources are also limited and water for irrigation must contend with increasing industrial and urban needs. All measures to increase productivity will need exploiting, amongst them: increasing yields, diversification to higher-value crops, and developing value chains to reduce marketing costs.

2. Reducing rural poverty through a socially inclusive strategy that comprises both agriculture as well as non-farm employment: Rural development must also benefit the poor, landless, women, scheduled castes, and tribes. Moreover, there are strong regional disparities: the majority of India’s poor are in rain-fed areas or in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic plains. Reaching such groups has not been easy. While progress has been made - the rural population classified as poor fell from nearly 40% in the early 1990s to below 30% by the mid-2000s (about a 1% fall per year) – there is a clear need for a faster reduction. Hence, poverty alleviation is a central pillar of the rural development efforts of the Government and the World Bank.

3. Ensuring that agricultural growth responds to food security needs: The sharp rise in food-grain production during India’s Green Revolution of the 1970s enabled the country to achieve self-sufficiency in food grains and stave off the threat of famine. Agricultural intensification in the 1970s to 1980s saw an increased demand for rural labor that raised rural wages and, together with declining food prices, reduced rural poverty. However agricultural growth in the 1990s and 2000s slowed down, averaging about 3.5% per annum, and cereal yields have increased by only 1.4% per annum in the 2000s. The slowdown in agricultural growth has become a major cause for concern. India’s rice yields are one-third of China’s and about half of those in Vietnam and Indonesia. The same is true for most other agricultural commodities.

10 Biggest Issues Being Faced by Farmers in 2020:

To gain a clearer perspective of the scale of the challenge, here are ten issues that are currently facing modern farmers:

  1. Climate change.
  2. The ongoing trade war between the United States and China.
  3. Rapidly depleting reserves of freshwater around the world.
  4. The looming food crisis.
  5. Economic insecurity in the United States.
  6. Ongoing closures of food processing facilities and local businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  7. Depletion of natural resources due to widespread industrial agricultural practices.
  8. High rates of food waste, which threaten to intensify food insecurity around the globe.
  9. Disruptions in trade networks and fluctuations in global demand for agricultural products.
  10. Economic strife and crippling debt for individual farmers.

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