March 29, 2024

Diabetestracker

Passion For Business

How a Bengaluru-based start-up is helping small farmers avoid distress sale

Agritech begin-up Ergos, which will help smaller and medium farmers in Bihar to keep and current market their harvested make by means of the grain lender principle, has expanded its functions to Karnataka and Maharashtra lately.

“We are looking at massive response from farmers in Karnataka and Maharashtra, where about 8,000 farmers have been brought on board. Warehouses have been set up in 22 areas,” said Kishor Jha, Founder and CEO of the Bengaluru-centered Ergos. The enterprise has introduced on board about one lakh farmers in Bihar, where it has established up warehouses in 240 areas given that 2012.

Using the services of warehouses

Describing the organization product, Jha explained Ergos hires warehouses at village degrees on long phrase leases to create grain banking companies and connects with the farmers in the vicinity outlining the principle of how to retail store the generate to get greater prices. For the duration of the harvest season, every single farmer, generally the small and medium, are in a hurry to market and the purchaser has a minimal capacity to buy.

Leveraging its tech-enabled system, Ergos converts the create saved in grain banking institutions into electronic inventory and a passbook is issued to the farmer with specifics of quantity and the style of grains. Presently, Ergos handles six forms of grains like maize, wheat, paddy, soyabean, tur and ragi.

“Once the grain is deposited into the warehouse, it gets fungible. We take treatment of the storage, preservation and connecting the farmer to the sector and also the monetary institution. Technological innovation performs a fantastic role in digitising the grains, producing visibility to the buyer and connecting with them” Jha, a banker-turned agri-entrepreneur stated.

Grain banks

Farmers can avail of Ergos’ grain financial institution companies at a mere 40 paise for every quintal, for every day, Jha mentioned including the design is built to go well with even smaller and marginal farmers, who can retailer and offer a single bag of grain. The stock management costs incorporate warehouse hire, chemical treatment, fumigation and pest handle to maintain the stock wellness. “Also we just take coverage go over for the warehouse versus fire, theft, earth quake and theft among the others,” he mentioned.

The grain stored at Ergos’ grain financial institution will continue to be in farmers account till the time he would like to sell for up to nine months. “If the farmer calls for any liquidity, we have many banking institutions and monetary establishments on the platform such as SBI and Sammunati, who lend to farmers against their grains deposited in the banking institutions through a person click,” Jha reported.

Jha mentioned that farmers, who promote their make after 3-4 months of harvest, can realise much better benefit. Ergos aids farmers in greater rate discovery and their incomes have been better by 30-40 per cent. Using the companies, farmers can grow to be selling price makers relatively than cost takers, Jha stated incorporating that his organization is aiding compact farmers avoid distress profits. Also, Ergos will help farmers to dispose of the grains that cannot be preserved.

“We are operating on a big significant strategy preparing to pan-India in states this sort of like Rajasthan, MP and Odisha in following 3-4 years, which will really assistance us to touch base with farmers in 70-80 per cent of the agricultural areas in the place. Our purpose is to set up 3,000 warehouse spots controlling about ₹10,000 crore value of deliver in the 3-4 several years,” Jha said.

Advisory providers

Ergos also present advisory to farmers monitoring the development and guides them for the duration of the harvest interval for on-farm processing actions these kinds of as drying and segregation of the make and also logistics. “We have just one romantic relationship manager for each and every 300 farmers, who assist them in employing our companies. For farmers, who are not savvy employing sensible phone, there is an assisted model by kiosks located at the warehouses,” he reported.

For traders and prospective buyers sourcing from its platform, Ergos has unique styles of offers with a base charge of 2 for each cent, Jha explained. Although the concentrate has been to cater to the neighborhood buyers in the region, Ergos has off-late started out connecting farmers with massive buyers nationally.

Printed on


February 16, 2022