Matchbox Solutions 
eFarm’s Launch Event on Friday October 3rd 2008
Held at Amarabharathi Hall, Thiruvanmuyur, Chennai
EFarm had been running a pilot since August in the Thiruvanmiyur/Valmiki Nagar area .On 3rd of October 2008, eFarm was formally launched as a daily operation serving the communities in and around Thiruvanmiyur and Mylapore .To mark this event a set of interesting sessions were organized which included presentations, ‘Meet the farmer’ session and a panel discussions with all key stakeholders in a typical agricultural supply chain. The event was well attended by local area residents, entrepreneurs from catering and hotel industry, media, NGOs and self help group members .
Venkata Subramanian, the Founder AND Managing Director of eFarm, while welcoming the guests gave an insight into the key reasons behind the agricultural crisis:
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Over 95% of agricultural produce reaches the end consumer through unorganized and unregulated marketing channels.
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The farmers do not have an effective, reliable supply chain system to sell their produce to the buyers. Hence they are unable to break the hold of the local mandies and commission agents.
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Over 40% of the produce gets wasted owing to poor storage, handling and in transit.
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Most information flow and transactions are through informal channels, the real demand, supply and price information is unknown, leading to guesswork and crude projections.
As a result, the end consumers experience high price fluctuations, unreliability in delivery and poor quality.
Mr. Ramar, a well-known expert in Organic banana cultivation in Tamilnadu gave an interesting and eye-opening talk on the farmer’s problems. Being an engineer by education, he had originally favoured modern farming practices and use of artificial farming methods but based on personal experiences had switched to purely organic farming techniques after seeing overall impact to his produce and farm. He now not only gets better yield than his peers and restored the soil conditions, but has also been able to create a better market value owing to the quality and consistency of his output.
He felt most of the educational / research institutions, government policies are having vested interests, and their recommendations are more focused on satisfying pure commercial interests and international requirements. As an example, he explained the artificial ripening process that is being propagated actively to increase the profitability of farmers. The raw bananas are soaked in a chemical tank of ethylene, to give it a ‘yellow’ coloring in the outer skin. Psychologically, customers seem to prefer the yellow skinned ones to green ones and pay a higher price for it. But the inside pulp has a pungent taste owing to the chemicals and is known to cause stomach upsets. The traditional ripening methods (using smoke or gunny bags) are safer but cannot produce this ‘yellow’ color and hence are slowly being discontinued for the sake of a few extra rupees. He later distributed organically grown illakki and poovan pazham varieties, and mentioned that these are the traditional varieties much loved by localites and our ancestors. The audience loved the natural taste.
He also shared other alarming facts about how traders soak cauliflowers in endosulphon, a banned substance, to create the white, shining color to attract the customers attention. He said customers often reject produce that may have a few insects, assuming they are bad. But these chemicals are even worse and have known to cause serious brain damage.He answered several questions from the audience with his own charming smile, wit and depth of knowledge in the field.
Later, Venkat called in key representatives from different components of the supply chain - a farmer, a commission agent, a transport provider, a distributor, a retailer and end consumer to the stage. The intent was to demonstrate to the audience the different entities involved in getting a farm product from the village to the city and the interactions between them. Starting with the consumer, each of the members highlighted the key problems they are facing currently and areas for improvement in the future. Venkat said, eFarm would try and fill in the gaps and enable a smooth flow of information and produce across the supply chain.
In summary, based on preliminary pilots and earlier trial runs conducted by eFarm, it is expected that the end consumer on average will get vegetables & fruits 20% cheaper than prevailing market rates. This saving is possible because of a combination of several unique factors in this model. Firstly, as the purchase is made directly from the farmer, intermediate middlemen commissions are avoided. Secondly, the demand from a local area is collected/predicted in advance by taking in orders in a standardized shopping list and consolidating the requirement into bulk quantities that can be purchased in wholesale. As demand and supply are known in advance, the procurement is very precise, using a simple and indigenous IT driven procurement and price matching system, thereby reducing wastage. Thirdly, the entire field operations are done using self-help groups and entrepreneurs from the local area, which are backed through subsidies and loans from government and micro finance institutions thus lowering the operating expense of the outlets.
This initiative will benefit the common man in several ways. For the farmers, it offers a better price and consistent demand for their produce. For SHG members, they get direct savings in their household budgets as they get vegetables at lower market cost. For small retailers, hand cart owners etc., can profit from the combined support of the entire network and work as a team to take on the threat from branded retailers. For the overall group, they generate additional income through sales from their store to end consumers. For the general consumer, they get quality farm produce at cheaper price right at their doorstep.
Venkat said that owing to rising demand they plan to now expand their operation and take in daily delivery for area residents, bulk buyers and hotels in the area. They are also in talk with other NGOs, SHGs and entrepreneurs in the Chennai area who may wish to setup similar stores.
For details on organic cultivation and banana farming, please contact Mr. Ramar at 9443501737.