Do you think we must start working towards making farming a sustainable source of income for the farmers of India?
The Centre for Collective Development (CCD) organized the small and marginal farmers of the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh with the vision to empower them as they negotiated with the intermediaries not giving them the fair price of their produce and exploiting them by deceit.
Dr Trilochan Sastry, professor of strategy and decision sciences at IIM, Bangalore, knew well that the farmers would only earn their right if they could sidestep the intermediaries and sell directly further down the value chain. This would also allow them to reduce costs as they transported their healthy, painstakingly nurtured produce to the market situated far away from their villages.
This has been a major empowering initiative for these farmers as they started earning more for their produce, improving their families' quality of life, and living a better life of dignity in their villages. The improved transparency in transactions in the self-help groups also builds confidence in their minds to collaborate and consolidate their resources to increase the productivity of their farming practices and earn even higher incomes while reducing the costs of purchasing inputs by bulk purchasing.
Farmveda was founded in the year 2016 as a for-profit organization associated with the farmers’ cooperatives for increasing income of the farmers through innovation. Farmveda procures fresh produce from the farmers and manufactures quality food products for consumers which in turn enables the farmers in more ways than one.
Farmveda products are 100% Natural, delicious, healthy and preservative-free. And all the profit from the sale of Farmveda products goes back to the farmers through the cooperatives as Farmveda is owned by the farmers. This not only has elevated the financial condition of the farmers, but also has been a revolution in motion unfolding at multiple levels. While CCD ensured the farmers get their due through the cooperative initiative, Farmveda ensured She became an entrepreneur. This a paradigm shift in Indian agriculture.
You read it right, ‘She’. Many of the farmers associated with Farmveda and CCD are women. This initiative has also helped herald women's empowerment in the regions of Farmveda’s operations by making them their family’s breadwinners and budding entrepreneurs that possess the potential of becoming innovators of tomorrow. Farmveda is particularly keen to encourage the youth of these farming communities to take up farming as a lucrative career option by making it profitable and empowering by connecting it with entrepreneurship.
As a rule, Farmveda recognises that the ‘Annadata’ knows better about how to nurture the land most effectively, having been brought observing the miracles of Mother Nature as She turns soil into food for nourishing Her children. Yet, Farmveda continues to encourage them to adopt more organic and natural means of farming to make agriculture more eco-friendly and healthier products for the consumers. These collaborative efforts have come a long way in making Farmveda’s products as natural as it gets for the consumers. The unique drying technology used in the processing of the products made from the produce, painstakingly nurtured by our farmers, ensures that they retain all the taste and goodness of health that Mother nature provided as Her blessing when the plants came to life. These products also have a long shelf-life and offer outstanding convenience for the families using these for their nourishment regularly.
As the times change and more women step out of the house to earn for their families and improve their quality of life, Farmveda’s products stand as their reliable friends to provide their families with appetizing and dependable nourishment in short cooking times. The farmers’ hearth stays jovially lit, too, as they gain the right due for their produce and realize the true promise of an independent & self-dependent India- that promised tryst with destiny made tangible by the social entrepreneurial initiative that is Farmveda.