COVID-19 crisis pushes farmers to look beyond conventional markets

Many farmers and farmers’ groups are now connecting directly with consumers through to sell produce

Vegetables from Rajghatta, a village in Doddaballapur taluk, have become popular in some apartments in Bengaluru’s IT hub of Marathahalli, while residents in a few localities in J.P. Nagar wait for fresh vegetables from Anekal farmers at their doorsteps. In some other areas in the city, people queue up to buy premium quality grapes from Chickballapur.

The COVID-19 crisis might have hit the farmers hard, but the silver lining is that several enterprising farmers have begun to look beyond conventional markets by connecting directly with consumers.

Several farmers, who hitherto did not focus much on marketing their produce, have now started exploring direct marketing concepts by avoiding middlemen.

While this method has helped sustain them during the lockdown, experts feel that this is likely to gain further momentum in the post-lockdown scenario too.

The trend suggests that farmers who came as a group or backed by institutional support, in particular, managed a greater degree of success. This has put the limelight on Farmers’ Producers’ Organisations (FPO), which are organised groups of about 1,000 farmers each.

Chaitra, CEO of the Rajghatta FPO, says that her organisation, comprising mostly vegetable and fruit farmers, has managed to establish links with several apartments in Marathahalli.

“We tried to explore markets directly and sent a small load of vegetables, worth around ₹20,000, to some of the apartments. The response was very good and the residents praised the freshness and quality of produce and the reasonable price. Encouraged by this, we sent two vehicles of vegetables and fruits worth around ₹60,000 the next day around 2 p.m. Such was the response that residents were buying them till 2 a.m.,” she says.

Now, her FPO has fine-tuned its marketing strategy based on customers’ feedback and sends the produce only during weekends.

“We manage to sell two to three tonnes of produce just during weekends,” she points out. She is planning to strengthen their marketing strategy further by buying new vehicles for vegetable sales as soon as the pandemic recedes.

Siddaraju, CEO of Anekal Horticultural Farmers’ Producers Company Ltd., says his organisation, comprising growers of a variety of vegetables including English cucumber, is now selling its produce directly to consumers on streets of various localities in J.P. Nagar.

“We focus on localities as there are no restrictions,” he says. His organisation too is planning to further build on their direct marketing concept post lockdown.

Ravi Sajjannavar, director of Hungund HFPCL, has set up a procurement centre in Bengaluru for fresh produce.

“We have started reaching out to other farmers beyond our locality or group. In fact, I have reached out to farmers in distress based on media reports and social media posts,” says Mr. Ravi, whose organisation is selling farmers’ produce directly to various big retail units in Bengaluru.

“Till last week, we procured 50 to 80 tonnes of onion, 20 to 35 tonnes of ginger, 20 tonnes of grapes, and five tonnes of mixed vegetables among others and managed to sell them without the intervention of middlemen,” he added.