Paper Details

The study assesses the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on over 137 Agri-startups in India for four phases of 2020-21 (first phase: April to June, Second: July to September, Third: October to December and fourth: January to March 2021). The results reveal that as a result of pandemic and restriction of economic activities startups have lost 19.15 percent of income, 17.59 percent of turnover and at the same, they also face time inflated cost of 9.21 percent in their cost of production compared to previous year (2019-20). The number of startups whose face labor cost of more than 10 percent was significantly higher than the input cost and thus it implies that the cost of labor for the startups during the pandemic is more than the input costs. After the normalization of the pandemic disorder and phased opening of economy startups have added 20 percent employment to the economy that were lost owing to COVID-19. Nearly one-third of startups would be failed to run their business with existing financial resources if the pandemic continues and most of them able to run their business not more than twelve months. At this junction, it’s high time to move away from business as usual approach and to leverage real-time data to insulate startups from an adverse crisis with strategic policy repose while promoting entrepreneurship in the agriculture allied sector.

Agri-startup, Covid 19, Pandemic, Investment, Income, Turnover, Employment