India’s agricultural supply chain is often described as a linear series of transactions: seed to field, field to market. In practice, it behaves more like a decentralised network. Each season, over 300 million tonnes of cereals and pulses pass through thousands of aggregation points, mandis, and warehouses. This movement intersects with credit, logistics, and price discovery, forming a system that influences both individual livelihoods and national food security.
Historically, this system has relied on manual records and informal trust. In the absence of structured infrastructure, inefficiencies go unaccounted. Data on quality and quantity is often delayed or fragmented. As a result, crucial decisions around procurement, lending, and logistics are based on limited or outdated signals.
Addressing this gap goes beyond digitising individual workflows. What is needed is an integrated technology stack that reflects the physical movement of food grains in real time. Each grain bag at the farmgate must be mirrored by a digital identity, capturing quality, ownership, and value. Every transaction should leave behind a verifiable trail that connects to credit systems and market access without delay.
Arya.ag has focused on building such infrastructure. Over the past five years, operations across more than 11,000 warehouses in 21 states have been digitised. This has enabled over 800,000 farmers and 1,600 FPOs to manage inventory, access finance, and connect to markets. Because the inventory is fully digitised and collateralised, farmers can secure working capital through over 60 partnered financial institutions, with faster turnaround times and more transparent terms.
The underlying system integrates multiple layers of technology. Computer vision is used to assess grain quality, ensuring standardisation and removing reliance on subjective visual inspection. IoT sensors monitor storage conditions such as temperature and humidity, sending automated alerts to maintain grain integrity. These inputs feed into a unified warehouse management platform, giving all stakeholders, farmers, financiers, buyers, access to the same data.
This infrastructure has already helped reduce post-harvest losses, which continue to hover between 5 and 6 percent nationally. The real gain, however, is in value retention. Farmers storing grain and accessing credit against it report income increases between 15 and 20 percent, based on usage patterns observed on our platform. With their produce safely stored and digitised, they are no longer forced to sell immediately or on unfavourable terms.
Ensuring the system works in rural environments has required rethinking design assumptions. Internet connectivity remains inconsistent, so the platform is built to work offline first, with automatic syncing. Interfaces are optimised for local languages and voice-based navigation. Farmers engage with the system because it delivers outcomes, like receiving a loan in under 48 hours that are immediate and practical.
The financial layer is tightly integrated. Tokenised grain receipts feed directly into lending workflows, enabling risk underwriting and disbursal with minimal friction. Because every bag of stored grain has a verified digital profile, lenders can make decisions based on real-time data. This has reduced processing time and expanded the availability of credit to geographies that previously depended on informal lending networks.
Aggregation has added a layer of efficiency. Smallholders working on fragmented plots often struggle to achieve viable volumes. Farmer Producer Organisations have emerged as vital intermediaries combining produce, standardising quality, and enabling farmers to access institutional finance and larger markets. As holdings continue to shrink across generations, the role of FPOs in aggregating not just land but value will become more central to the agricultural economy.
This decentralised technology layer is increasingly being seen as rural infrastructure. Like roads or electricity, it creates enabling conditions for multiple sectors. It reduces inefficiency, lowers the cost of capital, and brings transparency into markets. It also creates the visibility needed for informed public policy. When live data on stock and movement is available, government interventions such as procurement or price support can become more targeted and effective.
On the regulatory side, the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority has taken meaningful steps to standardise protocols. Several state governments are also launching digital agriculture initiatives and offering incentives for storage infrastructure. But alignment between policy support for individual entrepreneurs and institutional participants remains inconsistent. This disconnect needs to be addressed to sustain momentum.
Looking forward, the priorities are clear. The system must scale while retaining trust and accuracy. Interoperability across public and private systems will be essential. Data governance and privacy standards must evolve to ensure that farmer data is handled responsibly and transparently.
More broadly, the post-harvest layer must function as a live nervous system. It should enable grain, finance, and information to move in sync. When that happens, India’s agri-economy shifts from reactive to predictive, from scattered signals to real-time insights.
The real innovation in Indian agriculture will come from the field and what follows after harvest. Equipping the post-harvest ecosystem with the right technology and financial infrastructure can change how value is created and retained at the farmgate. When the system works for farmers with speed, trust, and clarity, the gains go far beyond reduced losses. They shape a more inclusive and stable food economy.