Global life sciences firm Bayer on Monday said it has signed an agreement with US-based food major Cargill to empower smallholder farmers with digital solutions, including comprehensive information on market prices, weather forecasts, and pre- to post-harvest insights.

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Drawing upon the capabilities of innovative platforms such as Cargill’s 'Digital Saathi' – a mobile-first, AI-driven service platform tailored to hyper-localised needs, and Bayer’s Better Life Farming Centres that supports over 5,00,000 smallholder farmers, this strategic partnership is dedicated to improving market access for smallholder farmers, it said in a statement.

"This partnership between Bayer and Cargill endeavours to connect with 3 million farmers across India within the next five years. Initially, the partnership will be implemented in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh and subsequently expand to other regions," the company added.

Bayer’s e-commerce strategy involves expanding tailored solutions through the 'Digital Saathi' app, starting with corn farming in Karnataka and later expanding to other crops and regions.

Additionally, Cargill’s 'Digital Saathi' platform offers convenient crop input e-commerce and crop sell offer features, ensuring farmers have improved access to high-quality crop inputs and facilitating market linkages between farmers and aggregators through a digitally-enabled marketplace.

"This integrated approach aims to enhance farmers’ decision-making capabilities, streamline agricultural operations, and foster efficient and seamless connections within the agricultural ecosystem," Bayer added.

Simon-Thorsten Wiebusch, Country Divisional Head, Crop Science Division of Bayer for India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, said, "Access to advisory, quality inputs, credit, technologies, or markets is one of the biggest enablers to unlocking smallholder value, and it lies at the very core of what this partnership is all about. We also believe that digitisation is key to this exercise…."

Therefore, the company is looking at leveraging all relevant digital tools to ensure that it is able to deliver greater value to the smallholder farmers and create for them a level playing field, he added.