E-commerce In Agriculture Domain

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is a government portal which is bringing e-commerce to agriculture with the help of NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and rural development).

Highlights

NABARD and ONDC partnership to promote e-commerce
NABARD and ONDC hackathon include 400 start-ups
Out of 400, 250 are Agri-Tech start-ups
Both Agri-Tech and Non-Agri-Tech start-ups will work together.

The Indian government launched the ONDC platform on December 31, 2021.

ONDC and NABARD are organizing the NABARD-ONDC Grand Hackathon from 1^st to 3^rd July. The application for the event ends on 28^th June.

This event aims to connect the market-ready FPOs (Farmer Producers Organizations) with the Agri-Tech players. This event is also looking forward to promoting e-commerce in the agriculture domain.

T Koshy, CEO of ONDC, said that this will be the first initiative to introduce Agri-Tech to the FPOs. He also mentioned that there are 400 participants in the hackathon. Out of 400, 250 are Agri-Tech start-ups.

Agri-Tech start-ups include Agmart, Ninjakart, John Deere and many more. The Non-Agri-Tech start-ups include the like of Sonata Software, Zoho, Alpha IoT and many more.

Many other start-ups have been looking to join ONDC with the likes of Paytm Mall and even tech giant Google.

E-commerce in Agriculture Domain — image source: Analytics India Magazine

Problems solved by this Hackathon

The hackathon will tackle 2 problems: One, how to integrate the existing Agri-Tech e-commerce player onto the ONDC network and second, how to build the dynamic solution to accelerate the adoption of the network available.

This hackathon will provide the platform for many start-ups in Agri-Tech or Non-Agri-Tech to collab and innovate the use of e-commerce in the agriculture domain.

NABARD was one of the earliest to invest in the ONDC. NABARD and ONDC then start this hackathon for the proper public knowledge and innovation of rural tech. This partnership will provide the finance and diversity to tackle Agri-Tech in agricultural domains.

In April, The Indian Government started the initiation of ONDC in 5 states – Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Shillong and Coimbatore.