what is efarm?

Overview

What if ... the farmer's supply information is available on web ?

What if... farmers can set their own minimum prices instead of middlemen ?

What if... multiple buyers can now bid directly for the produce ?

What if ...the transport from farmer to buyer can be booked and tracked online ?

What if ... payment ,delivery and quality can be assured to ensure both parties' interests are protected ?

What if .. we simplify the agri supply chain by shrinking the digital divide ?

What if... all of this is possible with just a mobile phone ?

Today's Dreams are tomorrow's reality ...

The Agri Crisis-Why?

The 'Real' Agrarian crisis

When one mentions 'agri crisis' most people associate it with farmer suicides, monsoon failures, poor yield , GM food etc.,Contrary to popular opinion, the real crisis in Indian agriculture is not because of poor farming practices, but more because of lack of organized marketing , supply chain & distribution .

An efficient supply chain is crucial for success of any modern industry . Though the Green revolution's focus was to increase the yield , as any economist would say, increasing supply without proper knowledge of 'demand' , would never yield expected results.

Thus , India is caught in situation where we are world leaders in 'production' but still having to 'import' even essential commodities. Our cost of production is very low, but our cost of local distribution is 3 times higher than world average making international products cheaper than home grown items !

The veggie trail

The following video clip (shot on locations surrounding Theni, Maduraiand Chennai )show the typical long and archaic route farm produce s take in their journey from farm to home.

As you can see from the video , the key gaps are :

- The produce changes too many hands , but very little value addition

- Crude weighing and quality control , leading to huge variation in grades and weights

- Mostly cash transations with no IT usage to record , hence no paper trail of volume or money involved

- Huge wastge in transit and poor handling

Why is there an agri crisis ?

The following presentation addresses further questions related to :

- Why modern retailers have not been able to create an impact ?

- Why government's various farmer centric initiatives and subsidies have failed to produce result ?

- Why data is crucial for any industry ?

WhyIsThereAnAgriCrisis.pdf

View more presentations from efarm123

it also outlines simple solutions , which form the basis of the efarm model

The eFarm Solution

eFarm's solution takes a more holistic approach , addressing the key needs and pain points of all stakeholders in the agri supply chain - farmers, transporters , intermediaries end consumers - to evolve a sustainable , transparent and efficient new distribution mechanism. It operates in the B2B space and serves bulk consumers of agri produce such as hotels, caterers, retail chains , food processing industries and vegetable vendors, and also runs a retail outlet for the Indian army.

eFarm's solution is based on following key strategies :

Develop a IT based backbone for data gathering, analysis ,planning and monitoring the entire operation
Setup low cost collection centres close to villages in partnership with farmers for organised collection and grading
Setup distribution centres in metros , close to customer location , for final delivery
Train intermediaries like transport operators in proper handling of perishables to reduce transit wastage
Map the demand and supply and ensure just in time distribution

eFarm is currently operational in Chennai and sources from over 1500 farmers in surrounding areas of tamilnadu .

The presentation below gives an overview of the eFarm solution .

HowDoesItWork.pdf

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Summary

Identify farmer's production details in advance
Identify the demand from customers in advance
Aggregate the demand by produce type and identify the best source of supply
Use a simple, IT driven order matching system to determine right sourcing & logistics strategy to fulfill the order.
Minimise wastage by procuring only what is required
Fix rates based on overall operational costs and margins taking into account all members in the supply chain

Immediate distribution through different marketing channels (bulk orders, door delivery, hand carts, walk-ins) to reduce need for storage/deep freezing etc.,

Technology

Cost of production calculator
Agri SCM
Billing & Accounting & InventoryManagement (MS accounting)
demand/supply simulation (SCM)
POS solution - in Tamil
Digital image recognition for agri produce

Operations

Planning:

Identify supply regions around key metro area
Identify farmers groups and clusters
Gather farmers cultivation data
Gather customers demand requirements
Match demand and supply and plan for procurement
Setup collection centres in procurement areas and train local villagers in key tasks
Setup distribution centres within key metro areas and train staff for local distribution

Daily operations :

Aggregate each day's orders requirments
Procure from collection centres based on demand
Sort/Grade produce into broad categories
Transport from collection centre to distribution centre(at metro) through truck
Unload and check quality of arrivals
Weigh and bag as per customer specifications
Transport to customer premises through local distribution vehicles
Gather customer feedback and record issues if any

Price fixation

We work on two broad models

Market based pricing :

We use certain common benchmarks like TNAU/INDG website , Chennai CMDA website data as baseline to arrive at both farmer and customer
Farmer and customer pricing are linked to market prices, say a certain percentage +/- the daily rates based on the processing/distance/eFarm's costs.

Cost of production based pricing :

Where farmers cost of production and margins are stable and mutually ageeable, we can do stable pricing all the way to end customers.
Similarly, if customers have certain fixed price bugets for procurement, we can work backwards to arrive at best source points to meet that criteria.

P.S : Currently we recommend this for farmers and customers who have had atleast 6 months working relationship with us as it takes some efort mutually to understand the benefits of such stable pricing model.

Major Sourcing Regions

Pondicherry/Dindivanam
Kancheepuram
Krishnagiri, Hosur •
Kodaikanal Thanjavur
Ooty/Mettupalayam
Theni/Cumbum
Nellore, AP

Consulting : Home

As we operate in the field of procurement and distribution of farm produce and perishables , efarm interacts with wide cross section of stakeholders for our own operations. One key gap we find is that though there is a lot of focus to produce an item, not much planning is done with regards to its marketing. Also aspects such as storage, transport costs are not adequately worked out before ventures are started. Hence , several ambitious projects for improving livelihoods for farmers, SHGs etc., often have not become sustainable and long term viable .

Most consultants currently in the field are primarily agricultural scientists who may be aware of the production side but not very competent in the management aspects such as marketing, branding,supply chain planning and technology adoption which are crucial for scaling up an idea.

eFarm offers consulting in following key areas.

Farm Planning and Management

Planning what to grow, when to grow, when to harvest, past price trends are very key for a successful farm.We advice farmers on planning the cultivation based on market demands , cost of production, price fixation, sorting/grading, farm automation and forward linkages to ensure viability of farm.

Marketing

Marketing of farm produce - raw or processed has been a key challenge . As customers are typically in cities , key aspects like demand planning, packaging, branding are often key aspects to plan prior to even starting manufacture.

We advice farmers, NGOs/SHGs on the basics of sales and marketing techniques, price fixation, contracts etc., with key focus on perishables.

Sourcing of Farm Produce

Industries and businesses based on steady supply of farm produce are often impacted by erratic fluctuations in supply, pricing and quality. As most of India's agri supply chain is still mandi driven , 'backward linkage' has been a key challenge for even corporate buyers. Also, with increasing global focus on traceability of the produce to track down potential food based epidemics , it is vital to have better planned approach to sourcing.

A well planned supply chain is very essential for a successful agro-based industry.eFarm assists buyers in identifying potential supply regions, target farmers , arrive at cost of procurement , simulate 'what if' scenarios in the supply chain to identify potential failures prior to happening .

IT implementations in Agriculture / Food Industry / Retail

One of the key reasons why other manufacturing and service industries have performed better is their IT adoption across the enterprise. Whereas in agriculture there is very little usage of IT, hence there is very little data or accurate information about farmers supply or consumer's demand . The supply chain also is planned in very adhoc manner, and is left to human errors in judgement.

Key reasons being that the primary user base is predominantly less educated/aged and has not shown interests in adopting technology. The IT companies also have traditionally preferred to deal with single large customer rather than group of smaller customers.

eFarm has been building very simple IT tools , which are mobile based and are easy for even illiterate users to learn. The backend platforms are based on modern internet technologies which run on SAAS/Cloud and shared across multiple users - reducing the costs and improving ROI.eFarm assists end users in deploying these tools to manage their agri businesses and also tie in to our eFarmDirect trading platform.

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