Visakhapatnam: Calling Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu his “best friend”, Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said that he would like to see a transformation in the field of agriculture so that it was run like a business – to be efficient, profitable, and meet the needs of producers and consumers.
While delivering the valedictory speech at the AP AgTech Summit-2017, he stressed on how the productivity of small and marginal farmers could be increased and market linkage could be improved through the use of technology. He appreciated AP’s digital financial inclusion plan and said that it would help ensure that subsidies reached farmers. Mr Gates spoke about a comprehensive approach to helping smallholder farmers prosper, which included the provision of access to heartier seeds, more effective tools and farm management practices, locally relevant knowledge, emerging digital technologies, and reliable markets.
