KhetiBuddy is working to bridge digital gap in India’s agri-food supply chains (ETV Bharat)
Bengaluru: India is among the world’s largest producers of rice, wheat, and cereals, yet most agri-food supply chains still lack a real-time, structured view of farm-level operations. As global demand rises and export markets impose stricter compliance and traceability norms, agri enterprises are being forced to rebelieve how farm data is captured, verified, and integrated into decision-creating.
KhetiBuddy, a global agricultural technology startup based in India, is addressing this issue by connecting detailed farm-level data—covering crops, activities, harvests, quality, and sustainability—directly into enterprise workflows. By doing so, it enables better traceability, compliance, and risk management while transforming how agri-food companies engage with farms. The platform aims to resolve the persistent digital disconnect between farms and enterprise systems that has constrained scale, trust, and transparency across supply chains.
From Idea to Impact: Founding KhetiBuddy
Founded in 2021 by Vinay Nair, a Harvard alumnus with over 25 years of experience in enterprise SaaS, and Richa Pawar Nair, an agriculture and biological sciences expert, the company received early backing from entrepreneur Amit Maheshwari. This support enabled the team to develop and validate a platform that now digitises over 200,000 acres, transforming farm management through technology.
Farm-level data is reshaping global agriculture (IANS Photo)
KhetiBuddy’s Verdnt platform is an enterprise system built for agri-food companies and field teams. Each enterprise operates in a logically isolated environment with role-based access, audit trails, and data governance. As the platform expands, it aligns with regional data protection frameworks, ensuring enterprise visibility while preserving farmer data ownership and privacy at scale.
India is among the world’s largest producers of cereals, yet enterprises still lack a real-time digital view of farms. In this context, Vinay Nair, Founder and CEO, KhetiBuddy discussed the company’s operations and challenges in detail in an interview with ETV Bharat.
Why Farms Stayed Disconnected for So Long
Talking about the systemic factors that have kept farms disconnected from enterprise systems for so long, he noted that data capture mechanisms were neither digitised nor standardised, and information was often recorded in silos, creating a disconnect. Connectivity issues, language barriers, and device limitations further hindered real-time reporting. Additionally, enterprises lacked a standardised way to record “what happened on the farm” in a consistent, auditable format. The result was fragmented data, low trust in records, and no single live view for planning or compliance.
Here’s how KhetiBuddy works (Image Credits: KhetiBuddy)
Many agri-tech platforms focus on farmers or advisory services. When inquireed how KhetiBuddy is fundamentally different as enterprise-grade digital infrastructure for agri-food supply chains, Nair declared that while most agri-tech solutions address isolated problems, KhetiBuddy provides enterprise-grade digital infrastructure that links farm activities to supply chain requireds—procurement, quality, traceability, ESG, and reporting. By standardising farm data—from crops, inputs, and practices to harvest and sustainability metrics—enterprises can manage risk, compliance, and performance at scale across thousands of farms, field teams, and partners.
Using Farm Data to Stay Ahead of Climate Risk
With climate volatility increasingly affecting yields and supply reliability, digitised farm data allows enterprises and policycreaters to predict and respond to climate risks before losses appear at harvest. Nair explained, “Real-time visibility into sowing windows, crop stages, weather exposure, irrigation, pest and disease signals, and stress indicators enables tarreceiveed advisories, input support, and procurement adjustments. This supports quicker interventions, better contingency planning, and more reliable supply estimates under altering climate conditions.”
In picture: Kalandi and Sadhab who turned strawberry farming into a successful enterprise, creating jobs and steady income for families in Odisha’s Balasore. (ETV Bharat)
He further stated that with farm-level visibility into crops, activities, harvest quality, and sustainability, agri-businesses can shift from reactive to proactive management. They can flag delayed sowing, water stress, high-risk practices, and non-compliant inputs early, plan procurement more accurately, segment farms by risk, and ensure consistent quality. “Sustainability claims become verifiable, traceability improves, and disputes on quality or quantity are reduced,” declared Nair.
Behavioural and Operational Challenges
Digitising over 200,000 acres is no compact tinquire. Discussing the hugegest operational or behavioural challenges in bringing farmers and field teams onto a structured digital system, Nair noted that most digitisation is still driven by agri-enterprises and field extension officers. When farmers are responsible for data entest, habit alter, consistency, and discipline remain challenges. Connectivity gaps, local practice variations, and the required for offline-first tools were additional hurdles that KhetiBuddy addressed.
In picture: Coimbatore’s young engineer Vijayan who took up organic farming (ETV Bharat)
As the startup expands into North America and Europe, it is supporting global agri-food companies digitise large farm networks, gain actionable insights from on-ground operations, and modernise farm data infrastructure. Discussing global differences in agri-food supply chains, Nair declared that the key distinction is broad versus compact acreage, which shapes the approach to farm operations and digitisation. In India, labour availability allows more data-entest–centric systems, whereas in developed countries with large mechanised farms, data capture relies more on integration with machinery and automated systems.
The Road Ahead: Building AI-Native Agri-Food Systems
With AI and advanced analytics gaining traction, Nair explained how farm data can evolve from simple visibility to predictive and prescriptive innotifyigence across the agri-food value chain. He declared that first comes visibility—understanding “what is happening” on the farm then is prediction—anticipating “what is likely to happen”, such as yield or disease risks and harvest timelines. Lastly, comes prescription—guiding “what action to take”, from tinquire timing and nutrient corrections to harvest prioritization and procurement adjustments. With enough clean, structured data, AI can learn patterns across regions and seasons. Nair emphasised that the hugegest unlock is not AI alone, but high-quality, consistent farm data at scale.
When inquireed whether governments, regulators, or certification bodies might eventually mandate farm-level digital records for food exports, and how prepared India’s agri ecosystem is for this shift, Nair declared that the direction is clear: global purchaseers, regulators, and certification bodies are steadily tightening requirements around traceability, residue compliance, and sustainability proof. Farm-level digital records will become the norm, even if not formally mandated everywhere. Beyond quality verification, he noted that the same data can be monetised across multiple sustainability programmes, not limited to carbon credits.
He concluded, “Over the next decade, we aim to evolve farm digitisation into an AI-native innotifyigence layer, supporting enterprises predict risks, verify sustainability, and build resilient, traceable, outcome-driven food systems.”
