The businessline Agri and Commodity Summit 2025, themed ‘Shaping agriculture and agri-business in a changing climate,’ is set to take place on Friday, January 10, 2025, from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Hotel Leela Palace, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

The Summit will bring together policymakers, industry leaders, stakeholders, and experts to address challenges and unlock opportunities in agri-business. The Summit aims to foster actionable solutions for a thriving, climate-resilient agricultural economy.

The Summit will be inaugurated by Devesh Chaturvedi, Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare. A special address will be delivered by Ashish Kumar Bhutani, Secretary, Ministry of Co-operation, while Shaji KV, Chairman, Nabard, will deliver the keynote address.

Rich takeaways

This will be followed by multiple sessions which promise to have rich takeaways for the participants. The session, ‘Why the monsoon has been raining woes over the last few years’ will have panellists such as DS Pai, Scientist G, IMD; Nabansu Chattopadhyay, Director, Agricultural Meteorology Division, WMO; Ajai Rana, Chairman, FSII and CEO, Savannah Seeds; and Neha Kumar, Head, South Asia Programme, Climate Bonds Initiative. The moderator for this will be Subramani Ra Mancombu of businessline.

This will be followed by a session on ‘Overcoming climate change with new seeds, strategies’. The panellists will be Venkatram Vasantavada, Director, FSII and MD & CEO, Seedworks International; Simon Wiebusch, MD & CEO, Bayer CropScience; S Soundararadjane, CEO, HyFarm; and Sanjiv Kanwar, MD, Yara South Asia. This session will be moderated by Vishwanath Kulkarni of businessline.

The highlight of the Agri Summit will be interactions with Drone Didis, a session moderated by Poornima Joshi of businessline, and one on Solar Didis, moderated by Rishi Ranjan Kala of businessline.

There will be a session on ‘Tapping digitisation and technology for agri development’ which will see speakers such as Hemendra Mathur, Co-founder, ThinkAg; Arjun Ahluwalia, CEO, Jai Kisan; Partha Ghosh, Programme Lead, Social Alpha; and Paresh Verma, ED, Shriram Bioseed Genetics. This session will be moderated by KV Kurmanath of businessline.

This will be followed by a session ‘Making way for biomass-based bio-energy’, which will include speakers such as Lt Col Monish Ahuja, MD, PRESPL; Madhur Jain, CEO, Varaha; Maninder Singh Nayyar, CEO, CEF; and Avinash Save, co-founder and COO, Biofuel Circle. The session will be moderated by Richa Mishra, businessline.

The last session will be ‘Challenges in price risk management’ with key panellists such as Kedar Deshpande, Chief Business Officer, NCDEX; Rajesh Paharia Jain; Chief Manager, Kribhco; Sanjai VS, GM, ABU, State Bank of India and Ashutosh Kumar, GM, Nabard. The session’s moderator will be Prabhudatta Mishra, businessline.

On climate change

This summit promises to bring together top minds in the agricultural sector to explore innovative solutions for the challenges posed by climate change and evolving market dynamics.

The Hindu businessline Agri & Commodity Summit 2025 is presented by Nabard and co-powered by Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSSI) in association with Yara.

The Associate Partners are NCDEX, Indofil, Bayer, Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Ltd, Kribhco Agri, NSE, Aqua Group and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. The Banking Partner is State Bank of India while the Broadcast Partner is NDTV Profit.

To view the event live visit: https://thbl.news/AS2025LS or scan the QR Code. Entry is only by invitation for pre-registered participants.