Dear Rodinhooders,
Last week, I presented at the Rodinhoods Open House about my startup Svadha – a for profit social enterprise which aims to making farming smarter and more efficient.
As someone who comes from a business management and liberal arts background, I couldn’t quite figure how I would meet the right kind of people who can bring tech skills on the table for Svadha. Luckily, Rodinhoods’ Yin-Yang Matchmaking section came to my rescue! 🙂
To say that it was a great experience would be an understatement. The Open House was lively, buzzing with energy, laughs and brainstorming galore and the insights that all presenters got, myself included, was very constructive and valuable. This session helped me get in touch with a lot of people about my idea and also interact with them about the potential possibilities of working together and getting suggestions of whom they could connect me to in related fields. I realised (huge thanks to Asha Chaudhry for this) that I should definitely make the most of the Rodinhoods’ online platform to connect with other like-minded Rodinhooders, who could not be present that at the Bangalore OH, about my idea. So here goes:
For me, it started three and half years ago with the simple nagging of question of ‘why is the farming sector, which is supposed to be the backbone of our economy, so inefficient, ill-planned and ridden with gaps?’
A lot of research into the field exhibited the multiple gaps that existed – from on farm inefficiencies, lapses in supply chain, poor warehousing, corrupt and cumbersome rollout and receipt of subsidies and policies which are unfavourable.
To dive into this further, I said goodbye to my job in the e-commerce space and went from researching, studying and exploring this sector as an interest into full time occupation in the farming sector. I got into an organisation in Delhi with the aim of building a farm-to-store model for chemical free produce grown by farmers in Mewat- one of the most economically backward districts in Haryana, with the objective of building markets for it in Delhi NCR and led the Sustainable Foods & Farming Division for an year and half and we successfully took our farmers’ produce to market in stores and institutions across Delhi NCR. This experience made one thing pretty clear – there are glaring issues in every aspect of the agrarian sector, but the ones that stood out to me the most, were the ones on the farm!
What fascinates me is that even though a lot of interest exists from the government and centre and state level to fix some of the problems in farming, they have to rely on redundant government organisations and research institutes in this field. Furthermore, the state of agricultural extension in the country is deplorable so the entire responsibility of making sure the agrarian sector is performing well, which is the backbone of our economy, is left to the farmer who has to use his limited resources and the lack of support yet maintain production surpluses year on year.
The trickle down effect of inefficiencies which plagues the entire food system starts with the farm, which apart from having severe economic issues also puts the farmer at a very disadvantageous position where he/she has no bargaining power or say and hardly benefits economically or socially from being in this profession.
And that understanding got me to Svadha – a start up aimed at making farm systems and farming communities smarter, knowledgeable and more efficient! *cue lightbulb icon*
With this is mind, I started with the objective of developing farm management tools which would be a hybrid of technological platforms and advisory services to enable a shift to smarter and more efficient farm systems. The objective is to work on a consulting basis with governments, farmer groups, development organisations and NGOs to develop, execute and monitor the establish of stable holistic farm systems across India’s farmlands.
I am looking to team up with tech strong people who have a passion for solving pertinent problems in the field of farming or want to use technological for impactful disruption in the agrarian sector.
I see immense potential growth in this sector, both for good meaningful work and for people who choose to be a part of it. The big question is – could that be some of you? 🙂
To provide a clearer idea to the product offering I am talking about and its scope, do check out the concept note PPT embedded down below and I look forward to a discussion and potential collaboration on this. To connect further you can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter. Cheers!
