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About the Challenge

AgriSurge Innovation Challenge (AIC) is an Open Innovation Challenge seeking to transform agriculture sector in the country through ground breaking ideas to meet the growing challenges with new solutions submitted by inspiring individuals and teams – of students, professionals, entrepreneurs, startups, and ordinary citizen innovators. AIC aims to ignite innovation leading to enhance the agricultural productivity of the country using 4IR technologies of AI, Big Data and others, ensuring to address the demands of growing population.

Agriculture sector is the mainstay of Pakistan’s economy as it contributes around 20 percent in the overall gross domestic product (GDP) and is also a big source of employment. It helps meet the food requirement of ever-increasing population, providing raw materials to all the major industrial sectors including textiles, leather, sugar, flour milling etc., and has a significant role in in poverty alleviation and rural development. Low growth, water shortage, environmental concerns, volatile energy prices, rising expectations from consumers – these are some of the complex challenges the agriculture sector is facing today, along with diminishing production profit margins for farmers. Innovation is playing a key role in addressing the challenges at a greater scale. To grow the food Pakistan and the world needs, innovative crop production systems to produce more in an environmentally, economically and socially viable way.

Modern agriculture infrastructure helps in achieving:

  • Higher productivity
  • State of food security
  • Highly developed infrastructures
  • High per capita income
  • Higher standard of living
Agriculture is the second largest section of the country with over 20% share of GDP. A total of 45% of the country’s labor force is in agriculture making it a backbone of the country’s economy.

Provincial share of agriculture production is given below:

SINDH

  • 24% of the provincial economy
  • 41% in national rice production
  • 18% in national wheat production
  • 37% population is directly earn their livelihoods from agriculture

PUNJAB

  • 68% of the provincial economy
  • 50% in national rice production
  • 75% in national wheat production
  • 40% population is directly earn their livelihoods from agriculture

KHYBER PAKHTUNKHAWA

  • 22% of the provincial economy
  • 2% in national rice production
  • 4% in national wheat production
  • 32% population is directly earn their livelihoods from agriculture

BALOCHISTAN

  • 19% of the provincial economy
  • 7% in national rice production
  • 3% in national wheat production
  • 40% population is directly earn their livelihoods from agriculture

World rankings of Pakistani crops:


Croprankings
Chickpeas3rd
Mango4th
Cotton4th
Dates5th
Apricot6th
Wheat7th
Rice11th
*reference: URL
In recent years, special measures have been taken by the Government which includes: concessions of PKR 15 billion in taxes and duties, increase in agriculture credit from PKR 336 billion to PKR 600 billion and tariff reduction for agriculture tube wells. All these steps are promising and encouraged the farmer community, but agricultural development cannot be achieved just by offering subsidies and tax concessions, rather we have to encourage and promote smart agriculture by introducing fourth industrial revolution technologies like Robotics, Internet of Things, AI, Big Data and others to address the challenges of the agriculture sector.
Ignite AgriSurge is aimed to showcase new developments in agricultural technology, and inviting entrepreneurs from across the country to pitch their concept and explain why it could revolutionise farming in Pakistan.

Objective

To use 4IW tech interventions to help increase agricultural productivity and address challenges of hunger, malnutrition and to solve most pressing agri issues through a thriving AgriTech ecosystem.

Challenge Outcome

AgriSurge Innovation Challenge is a catalyst for generating innovative IT solutions to major challenges facing the agriculture sector in Pakistan. The outcomes of the Challenge will ultimately serve to better the livelihoods of smallholder farmers who produce food and yet are food-insecure themselves. The Challenge could be instrumental in generating solutions to:
  • Increase agricultural production
  • Enrich value chains at each step in the farmer-to-market process
  • Use emerging technologies to optimize responses to climate change and other challenges
  • Empower vulnerable populations by establishing e-commerce platforms