#67 - Agriculture in India | Sivakumar Surampudi (Group Head, Agri & IT Business, ITC)

In this episode, we discuss the Indian Agriculture sector with Mr. Sivakumar Surampudi, Group Head – Agri & IT Business at ITC Limited, which is one India’s best-known conglomerates. Mr. Surampudi is a renowned thought leader with interests in agribusiness, rural marketing, retailing, infrastructure, and poverty alleviation. He led the World’s largest rural digital infrastructure program, ITC eChoupal, which empowers over 4 million farmers across the country.

In this discussion, he discussed the challenges facing the Agriculture sector, the impact of recent reforms, technology interventions to enable personalization at scale, ITC’s journey of building the eChoupal platform, and how India can move up the value chain to become a strong Agricultural exporter. This episode is a fascinating deep dive into a sector that employs about 60% of the country and is in the throes of revolution.

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0:00 - Introduction
0:55 - Problems facing the agriculture sector
03:20 - Can Indian agriculture be renumerative?
5:55 - How productivity can be increased in agriculture
10:26 - How can we build supply-demand dynamic in the market
14:25 - How can we improve the infrastructure for agricultural markets
20:06 - Agricultural reforms looking at farmers as entrepreneurs
25:15 - Role of Agritech at the beginning of the value chain
32:13 - Building ITC eChoupal - World's largest rural digital infrastructure program
37:43 - Anecdotes from the growth of ITC eChoupal
44:44 - Outlook for the future of India's Agriculture
50:26 - What Indian farmers should focus on in this new business environment
53:30 - How startups can work with corporates like ITC
56:10 - Conclusion