How a Bengaluru-based start-up is helping small farmers avoid distress sale
Agritech commence-up Ergos, which allows small and medium farmers in Bihar to store and market place their harvested deliver through the grain lender principle, has expanded its operations to Karnataka and Maharashtra just lately.
“We are viewing big response from farmers in Karnataka and Maharashtra, wherever over 8,000 farmers have been brought on board. Warehouses have been established up in 22 areas,” explained Kishor Jha, Founder and CEO of the Bengaluru-based Ergos. The corporation has introduced on board about 1 lakh farmers in Bihar, where it has established up warehouses in 240 locations since 2012.
Using the services of warehouses
Outlining the business enterprise model, Jha mentioned Ergos hires warehouses at village levels on long term leases to build grain financial institutions and connects with the farmers in the vicinity explaining the thought of how to retailer the develop to get better prices. Throughout the harvest time, each farmer, mostly the little and medium, are in a hurry to offer and the consumer has a restricted ability to invest in.
Leveraging its tech-enabled system, Ergos converts the create saved in grain financial institutions into electronic inventory and a passbook is issued to the farmer with information of quantity and the type of grains. Presently, Ergos handles 6 sorts of grains which include maize, wheat, paddy, soyabean, tur and ragi.
“Once the grain is deposited into the warehouse, it results in being fungible. We just take treatment of the storage, preservation and connecting the farmer to the marketplace and also the economic establishment. Technologies plays a excellent purpose in digitising the grains, making visibility to the buyer and connecting with them” Jha, a banker-turned agri-entrepreneur said.
Grain financial institutions
Farmers can avail of Ergos’ grain financial institution services at a mere 40 paise for every quintal, for every working day, Jha said including the model is designed to match even modest and marginal farmers, who can store and promote one particular bag of grain. The stock administration prices include things like warehouse lease, chemical therapy, fumigation and pest handle to sustain the inventory well being. “Also we consider insurance include for the warehouse towards hearth, theft, earth quake and theft among the other folks,” he mentioned.
The grain stored at Ergos’ grain bank will continue being in farmers account till the time he needs to market for up to nine months. “If the farmer needs any liquidity, we have a number of banking institutions and economical institutions on the platform which include SBI and Sammunati, who lend to farmers against their grains deposited in the financial institutions through 1 click on,” Jha said.
Jha explained that farmers, who sell their develop soon after 3-4 months of harvest, can realise far better worth. Ergos can help farmers in better price discovery and their incomes have been larger by 30-40 for every cent. Working with the services, farmers can come to be rate makers instead than value takers, Jha said incorporating that his enterprise is encouraging small farmers avoid distress product sales. Also, Ergos will help farmers to dispose of the grains that can not be preserved.
“We are functioning on a big massive program planning to pan-India in states these like Rajasthan, MP and Odisha in up coming 3-4 yrs, which will actually support us to contact foundation with farmers in 70-80 per cent of the agricultural places in the nation. Our intention is to set up 3,000 warehouse places handling about ₹10,000 crore well worth of produce in the 3-4 years,” Jha explained.
Advisory providers
Ergos also provide advisory to farmers monitoring the progress and guides them for the duration of the harvest time period for on-farm processing routines these types of as drying and segregation of the produce and also logistics. “We have a person romantic relationship manager for every 300 farmers, who support them in utilizing our products and services. For farmers, who are not savvy working with sensible cellphone, there’s an assisted model via kiosks situated at the warehouses,” he stated.
For traders and purchasers sourcing from its system, Ergos has distinct varieties of deals with a base charge of 2 per cent, Jha stated. Though the concentration has been to cater to the area consumers in the area, Ergos has off-late started connecting farmers with large consumers nationally.
Revealed on
February 16, 2022
