AgNext deploys India’s First AI-based solutions to Improve the Tea Quality of India

• Revitalizing the tea industry with Artificial Intelligence
• Large Industry Stalwarts like Goodricke, Rossell Tea and Bokahola Tea deployed the technology

New Delhi. 30 October 2020 (GPN): AgNext leading agritech startup has successfully deployed “TRAGNEXT – Tea Industry’s first AI based Fine Leaf Count solution” across Tea growing geographies of North East India. The deployment has been done with the aim to improve tea quality, suggest fair pricing for the Small Tea Growers and Industry alike and accelerate India again as a global leader in quality tea suitable for global markets and exports.

In 2018, AgNext partnered with the Tea Research Association to accelerate the implementation of data driven technology TRAGNEXT in the tea industry. The vision is to eradicate the traditional human-led manual methods of checking the tea quality that lacks visibility and authenticity of the assessments, resulting in improper pricing to the farmers.

TRAGNEXT is the first of its kind solution that automatically determines the fine leaf count without human intervention, removing subjectivity, reducing the process to seconds and improving overall accuracy. The initial deployments have been done in tea estates of prestigious clients like Goodricke, Rossell Tea and Bokahola Tea. The Tea Board of India has installed two machines in West Bengal and one in Assam. The demand was phenomenal, therefore TRAGNEXT is now deployed in CISTA, hub of Small Tea Growers’ at Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal.

Indian tea industry has witnessed a paradigm shift in the production share among small tea growers. In 2018 production share of Small Tea Growers (STG) was 49.28% and Big Tea Growers (BTG) 50.72%. Of the total tea production of 159.7m kg in August this year, STG accounted for 79.9m kg beating the total output of bug tea planters. There are 2.5 Lakh STG dominating 11 states of India. Sri Lanka & Kenya depend heavily on small holders for tea exports, for which quality is a key factor & their small growers have made a mark with acceptable quality and competitive prices. Indian small growers, despite their 49% share in tea production, are just not in reckoning when exports are considered due to quality of tea.

Commenting on the account of Small Tea Growers, Mr. Bijoy Gopal Chakroborty, President-Confederation of Indian small tea growers associations (CISTA), said that “AgNext has found favor with growers and needs to be expanded. There is a need to digitize the tea industry in a big way so that it becomes a tech-savvy industry in the future. We have witnessed small tea growers becoming tech savvy and smart. With the technological advancements, we aim to take the quality produce of STGs to international export markets.”

TRAGNEXT with its Computer vision based technology, the 1 Kg sample of tea can count the percentage of FLC (Fine Leaf Count) & coarse leaf within 2 minutes, giving accurate results, proper incentivization of the farmers and curbing yield loss for buyers. It also determines the surface moisture of the leaves which also plays a crucial role in quality procurement. The hardware device dries up the leaves to remove the surface moisture, separates the leaves on the conveyor belt and computer vision counts the FLC to give accurate results.

Adding to this Mr. Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, CEO AgNext, “the tea industry is at the cusp of transforming itself and it would be facilitated by unlocking AI and Data-Driven technologies. I am thankful to TRA for putting trust in us and holding hands to bring a wave of transformation in the Tea industry of India.”

“Since nearly 50 per cent of the tea industry is dominated by the small tea growers & bought leaf factories and quality plays a major role in determining prices. TRAGNEXT is a disruptive technology which is coming into action. Indian tea Industry hasn’t seen any transformation in the last 40 year in the way fine leaves are counted. The use of this technology will change the way tea businesses operate, bring a fair pricing model and boost up the exports.” said Tea Board of India & TRA’s Chairman Mr. Prabhat K. Bezboruah

Mr. Atul Asthana, managing director and CEO of Goodricke Group Ltd said, “Fine Leaf Count is a very important aspect in the tea industry. To do an accurate & immediate check on the quality and eliminate human errors, this machine will be beneficial for the whole tea industry.”

Mr. Joydeep Phukan, Principal Officer & Secretary – TRA India, Integration of technology is the need of the hour and integration needs to be undertaken both at the front end and backend to realize the full value of the value chain and also facilitate product diversification and creation of new markets.

India is the second-largest producer of tea, producing 1,339.70 million kgs while it stands fourth in terms of export after Kenya, China and Sri Lanka which produce approximately 1/4th of what India produces. Assam and West Bengal are the largest producers of tea in India and Assam alone accounts for 52 percent of India’s tea. India’s produce is consumed locally as it is one of the world’s largest consumers of tea, with about three-fourths of the country’s total produce consumed locally. Total tea export stood at US$ 830.90 million in FY19 and US$ 709.28 million in FY20 (till February 2020). The major reason for this disparity can be attributed to lack of rapid technologies at various transactional points (intersection of buyer & seller) in the Agri value chains to make quick quality decisions. The deployments by AgNext are a step towards making India a leading exporter of Tea and aims to deploy more than 100 solutions by March 2021. ENDS

About AgNext:

Founded in 2016, AgNext was started with a vision to make use of technology in bringing rapid quality assessment, and traceability solutions in the agriculture business. It was incepted with a vision to increase transparency, procurement effectiveness and safety of food in agribusinesses & benefit various stakeholders along the way.

Incubated at IIT Kharagpur, AgNext received its funding from Omnivore and Kalaari venture funds as well. AgNext was awarded as one of the best Agri-tech companies in Asia by Rabobank Sustainable Ag in 2019. Also, received “Best AgriTech Startup of India” award by Hon. Mr. Narendra Singh Tomar (Minister of agriculture & farmer welfare of India) in Outlook Agriculture Conclave & Swaraj Awards 2020 at New Delhi. AgNext was also amongst the top 11 AgriTech startups in Future Food Asia 2020.