C4IR India An Impact Journey 2025

Impact of the AI4AI initiative: CASE STUDIES Telangana: Project Saagu Baagu AI4AI’s first success was the adoption of the PPP framework by the Telangana Government under the project name “Saagu Baagu”. In the pilot phase of the initiative, 7,000 chilli farmers were supported with four digital technology applications: soil-testing, advisory, quality assaying and e-market connect. In the programme’s first season, participating farmers saw an incremental profit of $800/acre through 21% yield improvements and 9% reduced use of fertilizers and pesticides. Owing to the success of the initiative, in 2024 the state government expressed an interest in taking the initiative to 500,000 farmers in Telangana in 10 districts. In addition to the value chain transformation efforts, the Government of Telangana also launched India’s first agricultural data exchange. The exchange became the first piece of digital infrastructure to allow sector stakeholders to exchange agricultural data under a set of binding principles, including proper consent management. It had seen more than 4,000 data queries by October 2024, and a leading private-sector bank was using data from the exchange to lend to smallholder farmers.The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution India has been a critical partner for us in conceptualizing Saagu Baagu and Agri Data Exchange, initiatives that increased yield and supported optimal use of farm inputs, which ultimately raised farmers’ income. Based on the success of the pilot with 7,000 farmers, we have scaled the initiative to 50,000 farmers and plan to scale it to impact 500,000 farmers in the next two years. Rama Devi Lanka, Director, Emerging Technologies, Government of Telangana Uttar Pradesh In Uttar Pradesh, as a knowledge partner to the Department of Horticulture and Food Processing, the AI4AI initiative supported the formation of a Digital Agriculture and Export Promotion (DAEP) Council with representatives from 16 private-sector companies and government departments. The council is currently working to achieve its target of reaching more than 30,000 smallholder farmers and boosting their export readiness through digital technologies. Additionally, in collaboration with Deloitte India, the AI4AI initiative supported the drafting of the Uttar Pradesh Agritech Policy 2024, approved by the state cabinet in July 2024. The policy allowed the state government to allocate more than $2.75 million for agritech ecosystem development in the state and will focus on establishing a state-level data exchange, a sandbox and a state agritech conference. The implementation is likely to affect more than 250,000 farmers directly and more than 26 million farmers indirectly.Madhya Pradesh: Scaling food innovation through multistakeholder action AI4AI is working with the Government of Madhya Pradesh to develop proofs of concept for technology solutions that could have significant impact potential. Under the programme, the initiative supported the government to partner with many private-sector partners to test use cases related to data-driven lending to farmers, working capital access for SMEs, carbon finance for transitioning to sustainable agricultural practices, AI-based quality assaying and geospatial imagery-based credit scoring. On completion, the pilots will have had an impact on more than 18,000 farmers, after which the programme will enable the private sector to scale these services to at least 100,000 farmers. Maharashtra: Supporting women farmers to adopt digital agricultural solutions In Maharashtra, AI4AI has partnered with the Maharashtra State Women’s Economic Development Corporation (Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal – MAVIM) to provide digital agricultural technologies to around 100,000 women farmers. AI4AI supported MAVIM in conceptualizing the programme and creating an interface for the body to identify and partner with relevant private-sector digital agriculture service providers. Global expansion: AI4AI in other contexts Owing to the success of the PPP frameworks of AI4AI, the initiative has been replicated in other countries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The programme has since supported the Saudi government in identifying digital technologies for value chains such as date palms, especially for early pest detection. Several countries are currently discussing the initiative with a view to replicating the PPP frameworks. Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) India – an Impact Journey 17