An MBA graduate and an engineer, Devi Murthy loves spending time in the fields. Through her organisation, Kamal Kisan, Murthy customises products to suit the needs of India’s farmers.
In India’s agrarian economy, farmers are forced to spend a lot of money on imported farm equipment that is unsuitable for local use. Murthy wanted to bridge this gap.
After Murthy graduated from Drexel University with a degree in electrical engineering, she worked as a product manager developing sheet metal products. She went on to pursue a master’s in entrepreneurship at IIM Bangalore. “I was looking for an avenue to utilise my skills of sheet metal product development engineering to create positive change. A classmate suggested that I consider working on agriculture equipment,” she says.
Success in sight
She spent more than two years visiting research institutes and interacting with farmers.
She then founded Kamal Kisan, to develop farm equipment especially for small farm owners. These could substitute farm activities which depend heavily on machines.
In the beginning, she faced many failures. Her efforts to make a sugar cane harvester and a rice transplanter did not succeed. But finally, in July 2015, Kamal Kisan manufactured a vegetable planter. The product was priced low to make it affordable for small farmers. The feedback her team received was heartening
Today, Kamal Kisan makes use of outreach centres, extension offices and self-help groups to set up its service network. Selected rural workers become service providers. The organisation was given a seed fund of Rs.5 lakhs from IIT Madras’s Rural Technology and Business Incubation Centre.
Most farmers were doubtful about agricultural machinery because of their earlier failures, so it wasn’t easy to convince them that machines could be purchased at a nominal cost.
“Some farmers to whom we have provided our services to, invited me to their homes. They told me that they appreciate our inputs and are eagerly looking forward to more services. It is a huge encouragement for us. We are striving to reduce agricultural labour costs for these farmers by 50 per cent through our agricultural interventions,” adds Devi.
Today, through Kamal Kisan, Murthy has been able to reach out to more than 800 farmers and help them cumulatively save more than Rs. 10 lakh.
