FAARMS: A one-stop shop for farming community

Alok Duggal, founder & COO, FAARMS

FAARMS is a new-age digital platform catering to the wants of farmers. “It’s a one-stop resolution for farmers offering an entire spectrum of services that embody seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, animal feed and extra, with merchandise delivered proper at their doorstep,” says Alok Duggal, founder and COO of this agri startup. The thought originated two years again however the seed was sown a few years in the past. “Being from a small city in Punjab, I’ve seen farmers from shut quarters, heard about challenges first-hand, identified many for many years and have at all times felt a kinship in the direction of the neighborhood,” he informs.

Duggal’s stint at ING launched him to the world of micro-finance and the agricultural ecosystem. “I discovered in regards to the pain-points of the farming neighborhood. So, after spending 10 years in distribution and provide chain with JCDecaux and Residence Studio, I took a break to go across the northern and central components of the nation’s farming belt and tried to know the struggles of the farmers,” he says.

In accordance with him, farmers within the interiors of Haryana, Punjab, UP, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, MP and Karnataka, face a number of challenges in all of the phases of the manufacturing cycle—restricted market data and information, restricted entry to high quality seeds, fertilisers and agrochemicals and to prime it, a farmer has to waste a complete day when he travels to close by cities to buy farm inputs. A lot of the buying is finished with out a receipt and travelling by way of a number of factors. The farmer then has to hold kilos of fabric again, in lots of circumstances after borrowing cash from the moneylender.

“So, within the midst of the pandemic, Faarms was launched as the only level platform to deal with all these points,” says Duggal. “Modelled nearly because the Amazon – one cease on-line store for the farming neighborhood, farmers don’t simply purchase seeds, agrochemicals, animal feed and bio-fertiliser as they want, on the click on of a button, but additionally have entry to an enormous stock of well-known manufacturers out there instantly from the producers. Faarms by way of its inhouse logistic channel, ship the products to farmer’s doorstep. It will finally resolve most of the on a regular basis challenges a farmer faces, be it real merchandise or supply of cumbersome merchandise ,” he says.

Speaking in regards to the influence the enterprise has made to date, Duggal says, “One of many greatest successes could be the proof of with the ability to make a distinction within the lives of 60% of dairy farmers from 14 villages in Kota, Rajasthan. The beneficiaries noticed a rise of 16% of their common earnings and with the identical development y-o-y, Faarms targets to double the earnings of farmers by 2024.” Equally, the Faarms group has made certain that farmers rising wheat or paddy in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand or in Bathinda, Punjab, will get the very best number of seed properly prematurely to plan their sowing on time.

“The opposite success I might say is our attain,” says Duggal. “Our penetration is presently throughout Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, UP, Rajasthan and MP. We have now constructed a robust join with the farming neighborhood by delivering greater than 1000 merchandise on the farmer’s doorstep every day and are at this time linked to eight lakh farmers with robust and deeper protection of greater than 20,000 villages. On the time of the pandemic, our total group delivered merchandise to farmers at their properties of their villages, masking greater than 200 pincodes.”

Faarms has near 50 main manufacturers corresponding to Bayer, Godrej Agrovet, Deheus, PI Industries, Crystal Crop, Asses (Paras), Corteva on board as companions. “We had been bootstrapped for preliminary 12 months by elevating cash from household and associates, nonetheless robust enterprise traction has put us on the radar of the funding neighborhood. We’re within the midst of elevating funds and already have some concrete commitments,” he informs.