Farmers Movement Archive

B’luru start-up opens up new market for veggie, fruit farmers

Bengaluru: Shyam Benegal’s ‘Manthan’ (1976), based on Verghese Kurien’s milk cooperative movement, inspired TN Manjunath to set up ‘Humus’ - a Bengaluru-based start-up that sources fruits and vegetables from the farmers in and around Karnataka. Humus procures over 100 commodities from nearly 1,000 farmers from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which is sold at three retail outlets in Bengaluru’s Yelahanka, JP Nagar and Vidyaranyapura. On Friday evening, wooden pushcarts painted sky blue were lined up inside a simple big box store in Vidyaranyapura. Customers took their time to pick the best from a fresh lot of vegetables offered at a 20% discount on market rates. “One of the learnings we picked from the ‘Amul model’ was setting up collection points,” said Manjunath, who started the Humus with his business partner and wife Shilpa Gopalaiah in 2019. “The collection points present farmers with an option of not paying the 10% commission to an agent APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) and saving another 5% on transportation,” he added. Manjunath, who was a teaching faculty in an engineering college in Bengaluru, said coming from a family of farmers, he always wanted to do something in the agriculture field. “We are trying to create an agri value chain. That is to connect four major verticals — production, processing, procurement and marketing. We are now working on procurement and sales and marketing to build trust with consumers and farmers. To master all verticals, we will need at least a decade,” he said. Manjunath said that one of the changes needed was to move from a production-driven agriculture model to a sales-driven model. “We believe it has to be sales-driven agri model. Our farmers produce the yield and struggle to sell it. So, if we have a clear idea about the demand, the production is streamlined. The stores we run provides us data to share with the farmers who are associated with us,” he said. Humus has six collection centres in Dibburahalli, Attibele, Pandavapura, Ooty, CK Palli and Malur. Taking even small quantities from farmers is what make them stand out, says Manjunath. “To send their produce to an APMC a farmer has to opt for a single crop system. For a farmer producing 100-500kg of a vegetable, taking it to the APMC would not be convenient, considering the transportation charges. At the same time, we accept smaller quantities and we are located close to the farming hubs. Farmers who work with us bring their produce on even motorcycles,” he said. Talking about expanding the model further, he said that like Amul, Humus wants to have collection points in every Hobli (collection of 50 villages) in the state. The company plans to expand to tier 2 cities of Karnataka as well. Srinivasa Prasad, a retired government employee and customer said that apart from the lower cost compared to the market, knowing that a farmer is getting his right dues attracted him to the store. “I walked in seeing the carts parked together and later I realised produces were coming straight from the farmer. There should be more such models. But we hope there is more organic produce,” he said. Manjunath said that their business model would allow the farmers to return to organic methods of farming, but would take time. “There is an assumption that the yield will be less in the organic method but it is not true. Over the years, the fertiliser industry has misled farmers and made them use chemicals even though the soil was rich. It did boost yield, but only by a small margin. The long-term result was that only 5% of the farming is now organic and our groundwater levels are depleting,” he said. He said a quick change to organic farming will not be practical. “If we are able to procure from these farmers over a long period of time and when the trust is built, a shift from chemical-based farming to organic farming, in a phased manner is desirable. To ask them to immediately change their way is not practical,” he added. While talking about ongoing protests against the new farm laws, which farmers’ union claim would lead to the corporatisation of the agriculture sector, Manjunath said that farmers continue to have the option of choosing between private markets or APMCs. “Agri sector is huge. No, individual entity can’t take control over the sector. Such a monopoly has happened in the telecom industry because they are tech-enabled. But agriculture requires a fraternity of people to run the show,” he added.

Hindustan Times

21-03-2021

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