Laying the seeds of growth

The unfortunate spread of COVID-19 has impacted human lives with disruptions of livelihoods, communities, and businesses worldwide. In these tough times, SeedWorks is fully supportive of the decisions being taken by Governments for safety and future well- being of countrymen and society. SeedWorks is committed to support every initiative to win the WAR against CORONA. The organization is following all the Directives and Advisories issued by Central and State Governments.
Research & development in seed business plays a critical role in ensuring the product pipeline for business sustainability. Conventional breeding is augmented with molecular breeding to accelerate line and hybrid development. It has been offering significant genetics gains to USAgriseeds highly adaptable products across wide geographies in India & Abroad. SeedWorks continues to experiment with the use of Artificial Intelligence in precision phenotyping to deliver the best seed solutions. One of the examples is the use of AI for physical purity assessment of paddy grains, segmenting them into true hybrid seeds, other differentiated varieties, and impurities. It also provides insights on the distribution of grains by L/B ratio, colour, and other visual parameters.
The seed production is digitally enabled to capture a vast amount of agronomy with environmental data. SeedWorks is continuously working on utilizing the data with the power of data science to increase the efficacy of the process, forecasting of the seed supply, and incremental monetary gains to the thousands of farmers involved. Over the years, seed-producing farmers have seen significant improvement in their farm incomes and enhanced livelihoods.
The vast knowledge gathered in two decades of association with the global farming community has positioned USAgriseeds as a strong brand in the minds of millions of farmers India & Abroad. The technology-driven assessment of consumer needs, segmentation of the markets, and product positioning are the key to the success of the fast-growing USAgriseeds brand. Market research, which involves gathering market dynamics and farmer/channel insights, helps in modeling appropriate business strategy.
The frontline staff is well equipped with the appropriate tools to conduct product promotional activities along with physical presence to deliver superlative customer experience. The utilization of digital applications for data capturing, visualization, and reporting in the multi-location product trails for the product advancement assessments. A digital way of working has been continuing as a culture at SeedWorks and has been providing significant gains to the business.
SeedWorks is also tirelessly working with several AgTech start-ups, Government bodies, FPOs and Academia to develop a digital ecosystem to take the Indian Farmer to the next level. The pursuit of doubling farmers’ income has been the top agenda of the organization and it believes that technology will bring the next Green Revolution in India. Several key initiatives underway includes tech-driven avenues to hand-hold farmer throughout crop cycles, improving market linkages, access to best Agri-inputs and overall skill development.
While Safety is paramount at SeedWorks, the firm has been ensuring that all the employees & associates are safe and is constantly communicating with all the stakeholders to update them with business progress, industry updates, reassuring & keeping them engaged with positive stories. Many engagement initiatives like online training, social media campaigns & leveraging of various digital mediums and tools is helping the employees at SeedWorks come to speed with new ways of working.
During the pandemic, SeedWorks has taken exemplary initiatives, which are transforming traditional ways and standard procedures of connecting with customers, channel partners, and field teams from physical space to the virtual world while maintaining social distancing. Digital Marketing has become an integral part and is being used via social networking platforms like Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and other advertising enablers like Zapr and InMobi.
Further, SeedWorks unique & innovative programs align with three key stakeholders in the business viz. Farmers, Channel Partners, and Employees. The digital and social media campaigns are helping in increasing brand visibility, building relationships, generating leads, and keeping the audience informed and engaged. Today, SeedWorks has reached more than 6 million people in the farming community in digital mode.
A few of these socially promoted educational campaigns under the theme India Fights Back #Corona – A freehand drawing competition, What’s your Self Quarantine Routine, Women our Real Heroes: नारी को सलाम, Online Photography Contest and Logo Design Competitions on Facebook. These programs attracted entries from 22 states with diverse professional backgrounds such as students, teachers, working professionals, doctors, govt. officials, etc. SeedWorks is engaging with the channel partners using inhouse built digital apps such as USAgriSTAR, e-Sampark, and Jigyasa along with the conventional mediums.
Lastly, SeedWorks is also participating in various industry webinars/virtual summits that is allowing the organization to be on wide-ranging platforms to forge partnerships, boost innovation, trade and investments, and learning with businesses, knowledge institutions, investors, and governments to understand the growing elements of technology and their application in crisis and risk mitigation.

Source : etinsights.et-edge