Innovation

"The solution is an organic one, sustainable farming refers to how we can remove chemicals and poisons while farming, and secondly how we can reduce the usage of water while farming. Apart from this, we have also undertaken measures on a community level to increase awareness about hygiene, health, education, etc. We made the farmers aware of how to reduce flood irrigation. For water, we implemented drip irrigation, where the water is given to the plants drop by drop." shared Mr. Ambastha. This helped them to reduce water judiciously and in terms of profit and helped to increase the agricultural output as well.

So the solution was to go for organic farming or natural farming. It’s a regressive method of farming where your dependence on outside methods reduces drastically, so the farm becomes self-sufficient. For example, taking cow dung and cow urine to make natural organic fertilizers, in this way the farm becomes sustainable.

Inspiration

The main inspiration came from farmers. After interacting with them, the founders realised all their problems. In the community, the people shared their issues and the lack of intervention. Thousands of changes were required. From changing practices to boosting morale through hope. The sheer need to help the community pushed the founders to intervene. Starting with the water crisis impacting yield. But such large-scale issues require large-scale effort. So in a way, the company's goal was to provide hope on a local level, show results of organic practices to convince the farmers of the long-term positive impact, and then finally come through on the promises. Help the farmers, help themselves; while making enough profits to further the movement.

Overall impact

The short effects include creating an ecosystem. The company identified and adopted a village to create a proof-of-concept to see if these new sustainable methods would work on a large scale, which would be the long-term effects. In the next 3-4 years, the company intended to see if this concept works. Since the company is still in its infancy, the proof-of-concept is still churning out results that are being analysed by experts as we speak. Another benefit in the short term is that the organic farmers of the village get much better prices than before, just by switching to organic methods and cooperating with Farmers Rise.

Business benefit

The Company says that its long-term plans are still in the pipeline. It believes strongly that it must focus on the short-term goals for now since baby steps now will lead to a big leap in the future. The primary objective as understood was to increase the revenue for the farmers, increase revenue for people in the rural areas altogether, expand local revenue activities in the rural areas such as their products and plans, and assist them in getting the best price for their product while ensuring that the cost at which they carry out farming activities, reduces. Mr. Ambastha says that " Our projects are such that it replaces expensive fertilizers and farming techniques with much more sustainable alternatives that greatly reduces the financial impact on a farmer". It also extensively indulges in adopting innovative marketing techniques to promote organic products among the masses and makes them aware in such a manner that they are open to more such products in the future. For the company, this opens doors to a plethora of options pertaining to sustainable products as they will have opened up a wide market for that. The company actively indulges groups of farmers in these activities so this, directly and indirectly, provides additional revenue as well as employment for people in the rural areas. The idea is to also constantly educate the farmers so they become independent in the future to innovate sustainable farming techniques on their own.

Social and environmental benefit

Society benefits when there is sustainability in the ecosystem. The simplest way to define what being eco-friendly means is to say that it is the act of living with intent. This is what the Farmers Rise private limited has been doing by removing the poison from the prime sources on which humans feed upon. The intent is focused on not creating harm to the environment, and preventing as much harm from occurring to the environment through the company's interactions with it. It goes beyond an idea and extends to actual practices that influence how individuals conduct themselves.

Interview

Mr Jitendra Ambastha, Founder & CEO