New Delhi: In a significant development for the agricultural sector, Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare and Rural Development, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, launched the AgriSURE Scheme in New Delhi.

AgriSURE – Agri Fund for Start-ups & Rural Enterprises is an innovative fund which is a pioneering step toward revolutionizing the agricultural landscape in India.

With a focus on technology-driven, high-risk, high-impact ventures, AgriSURE is designed to fuel growth and foster innovation in the agricultural and rural start-up ecosystem.

A Blended capital fund of Rs 750 crore with SEBI Registered Category II, Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), contributions from the Government of India is Rs 250 crore, NABARD is Rs 250 crore, and Rs 250 crore is being mobilized from banks, insurance companies, and private investors.

With the introduction of the AgriSURE fund, the government aims to further drive investments in the agriculture sector that will empower farmers and boost the rural economy through accelerating accessible and affordable innovative solutions.

The NABARD website highlights the following Objectives of Agri SURE Fund:

The objectives of the AgriSURE Fund include, but not be limited to, providing funding support for the following.

– To create an investment-friendly climate for start-ups related to agriculture and allied activities and increase their investment absorption capacities.

– To accelerate the growth of start-ups in the agri ecosystem.

– Increase and sustain capital commitments to sector specific AIFs in order to enable them to provide equity support to Agri & Agri-tech start-ups engaged in s- erving farmers and FPOs/FPCs/Primary Cooperative Societies.

– Increase average size and number of investments by Alternative Investment Funds in Agri & Agri-tech start-ups.

– To encourage young entrepreneurs with innovative, technology-driven ideas and willingness to take high-risk, while engaging in high-impact activities in agriculture and Agri-tech.

– To provide liquidity to existing Agri & Agri-tech start-ups that are unable to upscale their business due to dearth of access to various kinds of financing like equity, debt instruments, etc.

– To give a boost to opportunities available for efficient and more profitable forward and backward linkage systems in the rural space that help make the farm produce value chain system stronger, robust and more systematic by encouraging start-ups operating in these activities and bring in new entrepreneurs into this field of agri-business.

– To enlist more players in the farm related ecosystem for enabling FPOs/FPCs/ Primary Cooperative Societies to access latest automated farm processes and machinery through Agri tech Start-ups.

– To create additional employment opportunities for the technically qualified rural and urban youth to look up to agriculture as a business opportunity.

– To retain the existing rural youth in agriculture and encourage the younger generation to take to agriculture by providing newer technologies, techniques and equipments at their doorsteps from time to time. By encouraging the urban youth to establish new Start-ups in the rural agricultural ecosystem to have a win-win situation for both young farmers and the urban entrepreneurs by working in their respective domains to benefit each other.

– To attract more investment in the agri and rural start-up ecosystem by making contribution to various Alternative Investment Funds.

Target Beneficiaries from Fund

– The Fund envisages to support about 85 Start-ups by the end of the Fund life with variable ticket size of upto ₹25 crore under the two schemes of the Fund.

– The target beneficiaries will include Start-ups working in agriculture and rural development sector and will include, but not limited to, Agritech, Food Processing, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Supply Chain Management, Farm Mechanisation, Biotechnology, Waste Management, Renewable energy, Agri Value Chain including Primary Cooperative Societies development, Support for FPOs, Technology support at Farm level and Climate change.

The ticket size and number of investments may undergo variations, depending on investment absorption capacity of the entrepreneurs/ enterprises and market conditions within the ecosystem and the like.