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The Indian potato farming landscape, despite its vital role in the national economy, is constantly grappling with persistent challenges, from unpredictable weather patterns and fragmented landholdings to a chronic shortage of manual labour, especially during critical seasons of potato planting and harvesting. These factors collectively pose a direct threat to tubers’ quality and timely potato farming operations. For companies like Agristo, a major player in the potato processing industry, ensuring a consistent supply of high-quality potatoes is paramount. This objective has driven a pioneering initiative focused on injecting advanced mechanization and modern agronomic practices into the potato supply chain, fundamentally altering the way potatoes are grown in parts of North India.
The Problem: Labor, Soil, and Time
The core issues identified by Agristo in potato farming were multifaceted. Firstly, the availability of labour poses a significant hurdle, particularly for farmers with large landholdings, impacting critical operations, most notably planting and harvesting. This scarcity leads to delays and inconsistent quality. Secondly, the traditional methods of soil preparation were found to be inefficient and suboptimal. Trials conducted by Agristo last year (Harvest Feb-Mar 2025), including a successful pilot of bulk harvesting using AVR 2R Automated Bulk Harvester, revealed that the soil preparation preceding planting was often inadequate. This resulted in an undesirable number of clods (lumps of soil) being harvested alongside the potato tubers, which the harvester’s sensors incorrectly treated as potatoes, complicating the process. This led to the realization that true efficiency and quality control must start much earlier in the cycle—specifically, with soil preparation and planting.
Potato farming in India happens in a winter-season, because the summers are too hot for potato production. This winter-season is just long enough to gain an optimal yield, but it’s important to make use of every available growing day. For that reason, the planting window is only 4-weeks in October. For an optimal yield and quality, the potato crop has to grow at least till the end of February. This means that the harvesting window till the end of March is only 5 weeks.
Precision 4 Row Potato Planter from GRIMME at Agristo Farms
Introducing Advanced Mechanization
Under Jochem Rovers‘ long-standing leadership, Agristo initiated an ambitious mechanization drive. This involved integrating advanced European machinery with precision agronomic techniques into Indian potato farming to enhance quality and efficiency throughout the supply chain. The initial deployment included two 260 HP New Holland tractors, imported from the United Kingdom, crucial for deep tillage and simultaneous planting.
The company also acquired two complete sets of integrated planting machinery from Europe, designed for high-precision, four-row operation. One complete set was sourced from Germany, comprising a Deep-hiller (front-mounted) and a four-row planter (rear-mounted), including a seed treatment kit for immediate in-furrow application. The second set featured a four-row planter and a front Deep-hiller, both from Netherlands. Both combinations allow for a front-and-back operation, integrating seedbed preparation and planting into a single, highly efficient pass.
Exceptional Performance and Efficiency
The performance of these integrated machine sets has marked a significant leap in efficiency compared to conventional methods. The key metric of success is the drastic reduction in planting time.
Using the new four-row machinery, the time required for planting one hectare is only 1.5 to 2 hours. This efficiency allows for a high daily capacity of 12 to 15 hectares per day. In contrast, a traditional two-row planting machine takes up to 5 to 6 hours per hectare and can only cover about three or four hectares per day. This represents an approximate 300% efficiency gain over traditional methods. This high-speed operation is crucial for achieving timely planting schedules, specially completing all the planting by the end of October! This is fundamental to meeting Agristo’s internal planting target of something in between 200 to 250 hectares across two districts in the initial planting season. The first trials were conducted in Hapur district and Amroha district in Western Uttar Pradesh.
Advanced Agronomy: The Guided Farming Model
Beyond sheer speed, the initiative is underpinned by a commitment to precision agronomy, encapsulated in what Agristo calls the “Guided Farming” program. This model redefines several fundamental farming practices.
One of the most significant changes is the dramatic reduction in the number of field passes required for soil preparation and planting. Farmers traditionally perform 10, 15, or even 20 field passes to achieve the desired soil texture. Agristo’s model demonstrates that three field passes are sufficient. The streamlined process involves stubble cutting, followed by subsoiling, and then the planting pass where the front Deep-hiller prepares the soil just before the rear planter lays the potato seed. This minimizes fuel consumption, machinery wear and tear, and soil compaction. To ensure optimal plant growth and tuber size uniformity—which is critical for the processing industry—the program mandates a standard row-to-row distance of 75 centimetres (30 inches). This precise, uniform spacing, achieved through the high-precision planter, is key to maximizing quality and yield.
Supporting the Farmer and Building a Strong Supply Chain
The entire initiative is built on a collaborative model, with the farmers themselves playing a key role in the conceptualization. Exposure visits for farmers to advanced potato growing regions like Belgium & the Netherlands showed them the potential of highly mechanized farming, leading them to request Agristo’s support in bringing similar efficiency to India. The overarching goal is twofold: farmer support, providing the tools and knowledge to plant efficiently and correctly, and supply chain strength, creating a very strong supply chain where external variables like weather, climate, and labour availability have a minimal impact on both planting and harvesting. By ensuring timely and high-quality planting, Agristo secures the initial step for a reliable, processable potato harvest.
This ambitious mechanization strategy, driven by a commitment to world-class agricultural standards, has been made possible by key leadership of Jochem Rovers, spearheading the effort to integrate advanced European machinery and precision agronomic techniques into the Indian potato farming landscape, thereby elevating quality and efficiency across the supply chain.
Future Outlook
Agristo’s mechanization project represents a comprehensive shift towards a technology-driven, quality-focused, and risk-mitigated model of potato production in India. The success of the initial trials, characterized by a near- 300% increase in planting efficiency and the adoption of the three-pass ‘Guided Farming’ method, demonstrates the immense potential for modernization. With plans to expand the machine fleet and increase the total area covered in the upcoming seasons, Agristo is setting a new benchmark for best practices in the sector. This move will not only benefit the company by ensuring a stable supply of high-quality processing potatoes but also empowers participating farmers by boosting their productivity and farmer income, reducing their dependence on scarce manual labour, and instilling advanced, globally recognized agronomic discipline into their operations. The shift from traditional, labour-intensive farming to highly efficient, mechanized ‘Guided Farming’ is poised to be a pivotal factor in the future of the Indian potato processing industry.
