AgriRain Agro Industries Pvt. Ltd.

AgriRain is first in the world to provide “Irrigation as a Service”. Mechanized irrigation available to small farmers is too expensive, and often requires subsidies. In addition, the irrigation options are ineffective due to lack of integrated solutions, complex purchasing decisions, inadequate farmer training, high operational expenses for pump/fuel, and requires more labor and time. In effect, vast majority (90%) of small farmers rely on erratic rainfall or sub-optimal methods of irrigation. Small farmer income has remained stagnated and climate change has only aggravated the uncertainty. AgriRain was founded in 2017 with the aim of finding an economical and effective solution which works for small farmers. While Hosereel systems are widely employed in Western agriculture contexts, they are large and difficult to operate in the fragmented and highly segregated land holdings as well as the heterogeneity of cropping systems to fit in the Indian and African context. AgriRain has thus devised and modified Idrofoglia’s (leading Italian irrigation company, est. 1979) Hosereel technology to provide a movable and flexible irrigation system that can cater to the typical land parcels ranging from 0.5-5 acres of smallholder farmers. Additionally, the unaffordable high CAPEX cost of irrigation systems for smallholder farmers, resulted in the genesis of a novel “Irrigation as a Service (IaaS)” model. Trained operators use fully integrated and mobile Hosereel technology to provide hassle-free, pay-per-service, and on-demand irrigation. AgriRain’s customized irrigation solution is modern and water efficient with WUE ~75-80% which is comparable to drip and sprinkler systems. With right partnerships, the model is proven to be scalable and farmer’s income has increased significantly.