Twenty three-year-old Ameya Srirang Supnekar, who owns a 12.5-acre farm in Satara near Pune, is no son of the soil. In fact, farming in his family was taken up as recently as 2000, when Supnekar?s father retired from a small engineering business and decided to lease land. But today Supnekar is not only running a successful farm, he has also sown the seeds of a marketing model that is inspiring other farmers of the region to form clusters and benefit from selling directly to consumers.
Of course, the trigger behind the idea was the Maharashtra government?s recent move to allow farmers to bypass the agri produce market committees (APMCs) in select products, especially vegetables. Previously, the APMCs had a control on the supply chain and farmers had to route their produce through these markets.
As Supnekar, an economics graduate, sits on his farm, Krushak Ashram at Padali in Satara district, 150 km from Pune, he recalls how his family realised ten years into farming that commission agents were eating up their profits.
?We used to get R6-8 per kg from the agents while the market rates were around R25-30 per kg. And from the R8 that I earned, R2 went towards transport, 10% was the commission for the agent and I was left with just R5.20, which would also include the price for the sacks, which cost R15-20 per bag,? his father, Srirang Supnekar, explains. So the family began experimenting and sent their produce to the local APMC markets. The family later sent their own people to re-purchase these vegetables back from the agents to understand how the rates get inflated along the way. ?These vegetables were purchased back from commission agents at R12-14 per kg and we realised that if we put 130 kg into the market, we got paid for only100 kg at a price of R6-8 per kg. So when the state government relaxed the rules for farmers, allowing them to sell directly, we decided to set up our own retail outlets where we could sell as per prevailing market rates,? says Ameya Supnekar.
Ashram for farmers
Krushak Ashram today grows 10-15 varieties of vegetables and delivers around four tonnes of organic vegetables to Pune on a weekly basis. The farm is in the process of establishing a franchisee network in Pune city as well. One retail outlet is currently functioning at Mukundnagar in Pune on a pilot basis to understand the expenses involved in running such an enterprise. There are three mobile vans too, that sell vegetables in housing societies across Pune. The vegetables are sold at the prevailing rate of the retail market on that day. The family, however, is not keen on sharing details on profit margins, saying that rates depend on the localities in which vegetables are sold.
The farm uses traditional farming techniques and there are even living facilities for other farmers to stay back and learn farming techniques. There is also a library for those interested in reading up on farming, which is why the family calls this an ashram.
?This was a pilot and now the ashram wants to go full scale and is in the process of setting up a franchisee network. We will start with 10 franchisees, who would be given a weighing scale with an enterprise resource planning software that would upload the prevailing rates of the day onto the machine. We want to get to the masses and not the classes and though the vegetables are organically produced, the ashram is not keen on getting a certification. The plan is to have at least 100 franchisees in the Pune market in a year beginning September,? says Supnekar. A website has also been launched in the name of http://www.krushakashram.in.
Government support
Supnekar now wants to involve farmers in the region in his effort as well and has sought the assistance of the state department of agriculture. In fact, state principal secretary (agriculture) Sudhir Kumar Goel had visited the Ashram just a week back, to study the various systems applied in production, post-harvest processes, distribution and sales. When contacted, Goel says the meeting with farmers at the Ashram is part of a larger mission of the government to bring together farmer groups across the state to facilitate marketing and help in creating backward linkages to reach out to the end consumer.
Goel says the government is keen that project models such as those created by Supnekar succeed and is ready to provide 40% subsidy for setting up grading and packing units as part of its backward linkages programme. This would make it easier for groups of farmers to manage the capital required for such efforts.
In fact, last year, a similar pilot was attempted by the government in Thane. The government now wants to take this to Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Ahmednagar and gradually across the state. Goel tells farmers that this is possible if they come together and create informal clubs to work on a united basis, instead of fighting middleman individually.
Says Vikas Patil, district superintendent executive officer of agriculture, Satara, and one of the organisers of the informal farmer meet at Supnekar’s farm, that this is part of the larger effort of the National Horticulture Mission to create clusters of farmers who can grow vegetables and supply these directly to the consumer. The target is to establish 50 farmer clubs in Satara district.
Growing community
A group of hundred farmers, Vitthal Krishi Vigynan Mandal, from Sakharwadi in Phaltan taluka has begun exporting okra to London. The group exports four tonnes on a daily basis and has also tied up with another supplier in Mumbai for supplying eight tonnes of marigold on a daily basis, says Nandkumar Bhosale, president of the group. The group also cultivates bananas on 100 acres and directly auctions the produce to buyers on the field itself instead of going to the market. The plan now is to create 10 such groups in nearby areas and invest in logistics to make transportation easier.
Yet another group in Koregaon in Satara district called Bhavishyavedha, a group of 10 farmers, is attempting a new model of leasing land from other farmers to cultivate vegetables on 10 acres. This group supplies around four to five tonnes of vegetables through their own vehicles to the Mumbai market, says Anil Jadhav, president of the group.
Corporate entry
Examples like these are far and few between and this is what Goel wants to change. ?The idea is to develop groups of farmers and channel funds to them. The objective is to have clubs of such groups in every taluka, possibly as producer companies,? Goel explains, adding that these federations or farmer clubs could then be tapped by corporations to form backward linkages. It would be easier to develop corporate linkages through such groups, he feels.
Maharashtra is implementing a public-private partnership model through which the state will help companies identify clusters of such groups. The plan is to have a three-tier structure: a producer company at the base that collects the farm output, a small and medium enterprise at the second tier that packages or processes the output, with a large company at the top tier that acts as an aggregator and sells it across retail chains, Goel says.
Firms including Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Rallis India Ltd, Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd and Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd have tied up with the state government to source supplies from such groups. This is a small beginning and the government is more than willing to help any corporate group in tying up with farmers directly, says Goel. ?Agri-business is volume driven and, therefore, it is necessary to bring farmers together,? he says.
Farmers such as Ameya Supnekar, Anil Jadhav and Nandkumar Bhosale have made a small beginning in Maharashtra. Supnekar says his dream is to bring youngsters from the city back to their villages and get them working on their fields again. Whether he and others of his ilk succeed in their attempts to create new marketing models that become the norm will have to be seen, but a beginning has surely been made.
