Technology integration imperative in agri, food business: Amaethon

Amidst growing challenges and changing food habits in the agri and food business, technology integration has become imperative, said experts at the ongoing Amaethon 2015, the food and agribusiness summit organised by students of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

"Growing challenges in the agri business and food business has made use of technology and its integration imperative in the current scenario," said Balwant Singh, Director, Seedbuzz as one of the panellists in the 'ICT Dialogue' panel discussion during Amaethon.

The three-day event witnessed several sessions including panel discussions on various issues like ICT, venture space and development agenda through agriculture, among others.

In her keynote address, Mohini Datt, Research Analyst, World Bank, highlighted the need for cooperation that countries of South Asia should think of in view of their shared geography.

This was followed by IIM-A faculty member G. Raghuram's address that traced the evolution of IIMA and the Post Graduate Programme in Agribusiness Management and IIMA faculty member and faculty advisor - Amaethon 2015 Vasant Gandhi's talk on challenges facing Indian Agriculture due to growing population with scarce resources, urban migration of labour, liberalisation, and advent of new technologies and changing food habits of the population.

Gandhi highlighted Amaethon has moved on from being a small event to the one which this year has attracted nearly 600 participants from across the country and even overseas for the first time.

As part of the panel discussion on 'Food Dialogue', panellists spoke of the need of food security and suggested various ways like efficient PDS, introduction and commercialisation of GM food crops, extrapolating the growth and success strategy of dairy in other sectors of agriculture etc. to ensure food security.