D Dharani, who owns an oil press in Arani, near Chennai is a happy man. Trained by the Nallakeerai team run by R Jaganathan, Dharani has received an order for 5,000 litres of oil this month. “Today, he has employed five more men and has invested in another oil press,” says Jaganathan. “Dharani has become an entrepreneur in his village,” he adds.
Rural entrepreneurship is exactly what Jaganathan has been trying to nurture ever since 2013 when he launched Nallakeerai. His vision — that of a self-sustained farmer to customer model — gets more muscle with the recent launch of a mobile app through the startup Farm Life that Jaganathan co-founded with Bhupesh Nagarajan.
The app, that’s called Farm Life, has three portals. “The first one is for farmers,” explains Jaganathan. “They can record what product they have grown and how much. We’ve made this possible through a simple voice recorder; he/she simply has to speak into it saying they have such and such quantity of rice, dal, turmeric…”
The second one could make life a whole lot easier for those who want to go entirely organic. It works like this: the customer has to subscribe with them for an ‘Entry combo’ by paying ₹6,500 for three months. “For this combo, they get 10 kilograms of raw or boiled rice; two kilograms of toor dal ; one kilogram of channa dal ; two litres groundnut oil and one litre gingelly oil a month,” explains Jaganathan.
“ Dal rice, it is said, is an important food for babies, with its perfect mix of proteins, fats, carbohydrates. This combo has exactly that; while it is good for consumption, depending on our local farmers for our protein, fat, and carbohydrate needs is good for their economy,” he adds. Jaganathan often speaks of how a majority of our edible oil and pulses are being imported, while we have the capacity to produce them ourselves. The politics of it apart, he feels that local is the best, taste-wise too.
Which is why, the team has made it compulsory for customers to make an advance payment for the first three months. “At the end of this period, they will automatically switch to our local varieties,” says Jaganathan. “The sweet smell of our dal is nothing when compared to its imported counterpart.” The advance payment benefits farmers, giving them a clear idea of how much produce is expected of them. “They have the promise that their produce will be taken, which solves a lot of their problems,” he adds. This model, called market-led production, a strategy in which the customer’s demand is assessed and production is kick-started based on that, could be the solution to a lot of farmer issues. Jaganathan says that this way, they are able to create a profitable environment for them to work in. “We also select regions based on the soil that facilitates a certain kind of crop the best. For instance, Tiruchengode belt, that has no irrigation system and depends solely on rain for cultivation, is supposed to produce the best groundnuts. We source our groundnuts from the region since there’s no pesticide use there.”
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