Along with helping the farming community with its on-farm extension work, development of new crop varieties having low pest attack and high yield traits and demonstration of new technologies as part of farm mechanisation, a new initiative of Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University (PJTSAU) is set to help improve farmers’ income.
A memorandum of understanding was signed here on Saturday between SuperZop, an agri-tech startup nurtured at the varsity’s AgHub (Agri Innovation Hub), AgHub and the university, as part of which a mobile app, SuperBid developed by SuperZop is commercialised as a B2B interface, which in turn help farmers get better price for their produce (paddy) based on the quality of rice processed from it.
The agreement facilitates commercialisation of SuperZop’s proprietary AI-based technology platforms – SuperBid, a market linkage platform, and SuperGRT, an automated quality assessment technology to perform quality assessment of the produced grain just under 10 seconds.
According to PJTSAU Vice-Chancellor V. Praveen Rao, the startup has been part of AgHub’s Agri Innovation Pilot (AIP) during 2021 and validated its technology at real farm level. The application has the potential to help farmers, farmer producer organisations and millers of Telangana to assess the quality of grain to help farmers get better price for their produce. He suggested the startup to bring out the Telugu version of the mobile app, too, to reach out to more farmers.
As part of commercialising their services, co-founder of SuperZop Prithvi Singh interacted with several rice millers and FPOs of Telangana in the presence of officials of AgHub and PJTSAU led by Mr. Praveen Rao, who is also the chairman of AgHub, managing director of AgHub Kalpana Shastry, director (Research) of the university R. Jagadeeshwar Rao and CEO of AgHub Vijay Nadiminti.
Highlighting SuperZop’s proprietary technologies, the startup’s co-founder explained the ease in using the app and detection process. Such quality information would help FPOs and millers in Telangana take an informed decision and help them and farmers get better prices. The startup would support local farmers, FPOs and processors of rice and other grains in capacity building, brand development, market linkages and grain quality assessment.
Besides, the SuperGRT technology would help farmers assess the quality of produce on the go, making it easier to match the produce with market requirement, Mr. Prithvi Singh said.