The farmers of Telangana’s Adilabad district have scripted successful story that may function a prepared template for the nation to embrace. Four meals producer organisations (FPOs) promoted by the Dhan Foundation have leveraged new-age digital applied sciences to beat their constraints, rising their collective incomes sizably.
Farmers from Asifabad, Untoor, Indervelly and Gudihathnoor in Adilabad had been going through a number of post-harvest challenges, with lack of entry to monetary sources, storage issues and confusion over when and whom to promote forcing them to go for misery gross sales. With a liquidity crunch affecting their operations, there was a menace to farm productiveness within the area.
However, to not be deterred, the farmers of this area of Telangana, led by girls in addition to these from ST, SC and OBC communities, embraced expertise to interrupt the sample of misery sale of farm produce. Firstly, because of the digital warehouses provided by agritech startup Arya.ag’s built-in providers, the farmers have been in a position to retailer their farm produce in an clever ecosystem that provided real-time monitoring, together with on the uptake of cotton and pulses. This farm produce might then be used as collateral for mortgage issues, thereby enabling the farmers to achieve entry to monetary providers, in all probability for the primary time in lots of circumstances.
For occasion, members of the UNR Farmers Producer Company educated themselves in scientific storage and accessed the finance options to lift their revenue from 90 lakh to 1.2 crore. Similarly, the BBWS Farmers Producer Company made a further revenue of Rs 90 lakh attributable to entry to storage options and loans towards commodities. Equipped with the most recent digital applied sciences like AI, ML and IoT, the farmers have been in a position to derive multifold advantages starting from warehousing services to entry to finance and commerce providers.
Grouped below the umbrella of the DNT Farmers Producer Company, the small farmers of the area have managed to extend their collective revenue from Rs 1.4 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 2 crore in 2020-21 and to Rs 7 crore in 2021-22. As for the Indervelly FPC, it has used the Arya.ag platform to promote cotton bales, with its turnover this yr touching Rs 14 crore from the sale of greater than 4,100 bales.
On her expertise of promoting on the platform, M Tanubai, chairman, Indervelly FPO, mentioned, “Last year, we sold 300 cotton bales independently. We received an advance payment for 100 bales but for the remaining 200 bales, there were GST deductions that we were previously unaware of. While working with Arya’s platform, we get advance payments in full with no deductions. There is transparency in trade and complete documentation with buyers.”
Chitru Patel, chairman, UNR Farmers Producer Company, added, “The instant loan disbursements and payments from Arya.ag’s platform have made it possible for us to make immediate payouts to the farmers associated with us. This has helped us build strong relationships with them as they know that the organisation is working for their welfare and they are not struggling for cash to meet their needs.”
The mannequin of farm produce-based digital lending has helped obtain monetary inclusion as effectively. Also, the farmers, who have been earlier largely depending on conventional channels for commerce and finance, have been in a position to avail the providers with full transparency. Through Arya.ag’s digital lending mannequin, their mortgage requests are processed very quickly. From going through a menace to their livelihoods to witnessing an nearly four-fold improve of their collective revenue is how the appliance of digital applied sciences within the agrichain area has impacted their lives. As Arya.ag’s co-founder Chattanathan Devarajan places it: “Technology cuts through all biases and prejudices with an eventual aim to benefit the end-user. The turnaround story of the farming community in Adilabad highlights the difference digital tech-led new-age agritech firms can make to the sector. In fact, the relevance of such players is more than just of an intermediary or facilitator, since they are driven by the goal of empowerment.”
Source: www.financialexpress.com”