Hacking Agriculture

One year ago, I decided that I wanted to change agriculture as an industry. One of the first thing that I did, which I am extremely proud of, was to study a lot of success stories in agriculture. I had written this summary back in January this year, feel free to add your comments.

Introduction

There are many ways to look at what ails agriculture and there are 100s of symptoms that can be listed. And each symptom can be recommended its own treatment and for last few decades that’s what people have been working on.

Finally, we are at a stage where there seems to be a momentum being built around agriculture, a revolution in its infancy. Question to answer then is how to accelerate this revolution and bring every farmer under its ambit. One of the signal towards this building momentum has been success stories around agriculture that are getting highlighted in the social and popular media. Stories that talk about farmers earning lakhs and some even crores surely capture one’s attention especially when they are contrasted by farmers who are consistently under debt, making meagre income of a few thousands per year.

So We decided to go through 100 such success stories and based on that make a roadmap that can be used to push a large number of farmers towards prosperity. We covered stories encompassing farmers from various backgrounds: marginal farmers in dry regions, work of social organisations and CSR actvities, intervention of govt. institutions, environment sensitive farmers, traditionally well off farmers, next gen farmers treating agriculture as a business with land holding varying from 1 acre to 50+ acres and across agriculture practices.

The basics

The first and foremost conclusion We could draw was that this idea of earning lacs and crores from farming is a misleading definition of success. Firstly because it ignores the investment made and secondly it ignores a huge class of farmers who are equal representatives of the agriculture revolution.

What’s a true parameter of success then?

When the farmers making lacs and crores from their farms were enquired, it turned out that their investments and expenses were equally huge. A general rule of thumb that We could come up was that a successful farmer generally earns around twice of their expenses, leaving aside the long term investments made in the farm. In fact, when you look at this rule then the farmers who focus on zero budget farming techniques like cow based organic farming, permaculture etc. or the ones who are overcoming extreme conditions, while the absolute earnings are not huge, earn a lot more in comparison to what they invest which is mostly in form of labour.

A successful farmer is the one who earns at least 2X of their expenses in the farm annually.

The second most important thing to focus on is that no agriculture practice or set of crops brings guaranteed success. The last agriculture revolution promoted a handful of crops and a specific agriculture model which has reduced agriculture to its sorry state today. But this conclusion is not based on that assumption as we would have preferred organic and environment friendly agriculture to take the podium.

No crop, no agriculture practice guarantees success

Reality is that many of these successful farmers had struggled with otherwise promoted recipes of successful agriculture. For example, Sandalwood can generate revenue in crores per acre. But simply sowing sandalwood and waiting for 25 years wouldn’t help much. The farmer who has achieved success growing sandalwood finds success not in his main crop but the supporting trees that he grows which brings this time down to 15 years. Similarly farmers have constantly struggled with specific model taking them years to find success whether it be organic farming, permaculture, poly house or hydroponics. The success mostly lies outside the model and not within.

But then is there a single recipe of success that can be made viral enough for the millions of farmers of India to benefit from? The variety of stories that we went through establishes one thing, there is not just one but many routes to success. But underlying all these success stories were a few basic principles that we found were a common theme across the board.

Recipe for success

In terms of attitude, the common theme was creating efficiency through better management of the farm and creating opportunities through various innovations. Certain common management themes that we found were use of drip irrigation or water harvesting, mulching, preventive measures to reduce crop damage, well planned farm layouts and various other basic actions to maximise resource utilisation. Similarly various innovations especially in marketing, processing and improving quality of output were the primary reason these successful farmers could break the barriers of agriculture economy.

Another thing we noticed that the success either came through a lot of effort and took its own time and a fair amount of failures and learning or it came with good research and big investments. Taking the first step towards a successful model was never easy. It either came with a huge risk or took its own time to develop.

Taking the first step

Whether they went big with 30 acre plantations or they started with a quarter acre experiment, before taking the plunge one important aspect is to gain enough knowledge and some experience about what you are doing. Those who took help of others and expanded their knowledge could do it in a couple of years while others who innovated on their own had to spend a considerable amount of time before achieving results. Having a support system can be a decisive factor when things go wrong, whether it be loyal customers, a mentor, peer farmers or even a youtube channel. It goes without saying that starting small is always a good strategy given the risk involved.

A caution

One of the easiest mistakes we can make is to get obsessed with the 2X growth. As the last revolution established, this growth is unsustainable on its own. A few interesting things that we noticed was that these next gen farmers are very much aware of that. Even the ones who are investing big in their farms and are still using chemicals are focused on sustainability. Almost all of the success stories focused on reducing water consumption either by using drip irrigation or by building ponds etc. to conserve water. Secondly, almost everyone is focusing on soil fertility enhancement by constantly adding organic matter to their farms using some sort of composting technique. Another interesting observation was that these next gen farmers are at times selectively reducing their harvest in order to improve the quality and not to over stress their soil and other resources.

We did come across huge farms as large as 50+ acres which still depend on chemicals but even if it is done in order to minimise cost, these farms too do not abuse those chemicals but use them scarcely and efficiently.

Actionable insights

Crop Selection

Most of the farmers are either growing multiple crops or non-traditional crops. Even the ones who are growing traditional crops they do so by creating unique advantages for themselves.

Currently, the general practice is that farmers grow a single industrial crop in their fields and same crop and same varieties are grown in entire catchment of a mandi. This creates a supply overload, reducing the price down. This also creates a ground for same set of weeds, disease and pests to run rampant through the field and repeated use of same chemicals make them resistant to them and hence tougher to manage.

Observed patterns

• Use of trees: Once fully grown, trees require less maintenance as compared to regular field crops and are relatively more resistant to variations in weather. Fruit bearing trees can be used either for personal consumption or to get additional revenue.
• Use of vegetables: Vegetables generally have longer harvesting season as compared to cereals and pulses, hence allowing for a wider distribution of income across season.
• Exotic or non-conventional: Bamboo, Sandalwood, Spirulina, Date, Betel, Silk, mushroom, poultry, fish, apiculture, floriculture, exotic vegetables etc. Leveraging a unique market with limited supply. Could be main crop or supporting extra.
• Multi-crop models: Supporting crops like pulses for nitrogen fixing, marigold for avoiding pests etc. Multi-layer farming, integrated farming, mixed crops etc. Use case specific crop based on need.

Things to focus on when selecting next crop

• Market, price and supply: Ensure that there is a market for what you are growing that you can access and the price is consistent and good and ensure that suddenly a lot of your peers are not growing the same crop. Sudden excess of supply in market converts a profitable crop into a loss making one.
• Resources, requirements and investment: Some crops like vegetables will require excess care and fresh water, trees won’t give any return for first few years and non-conventional crops may require considerable investment. Ensure that you and your farm are ready for the crop you are choosing.
• Support system: Whether it be a peer farmer, KVK or a company assisting in establishing a model farm. Ensure that you have a support system to guide you through the challenges of picking a new crop.
• Cropping pattern: Preferably, give up mono-cropping. Reduces risk considerably, increases revenue per acre and distributes income across season. inter-cropping, multi-layer, mixed cropping etc.

Risk and Gain factors

• Market: Excessive supply reduces prices, more consumption ready higher the possibility of going direct to consumer and hence increasing margins considerably.
• Soil, water and weather: If the soil, water and environmental factors are inappropriate for a crop then it will not thrive.
• Disease and pest: If the soil is vulnerable to certain diseases and pests then it may impact the new crop too.
• Investment: Higher the investment, bigger the impact of every risk factor.
• Income distribution: How often you can get returns. Sugarcane once in 12–16 months, vegetables: weekly etc.
• Production control: How much control do you get over when to sow and when to harvest. Management around extreme weather events and market prices. Cereals and pulses can be stored, vegetables not so much.

Cropping pattern and model

We came across a lot of orchards, agro-forestry, mixed cropping, permaculture, multi-layer farming, organic and other supporting business lines like apiculture, poultry, vermi-composting, dairy etc. There were a few instances of hydroponics and polyhouse farming. Mono-cropping was prevalent enough too.

Observed patterns

• Organic: Seems like organic is helping farmers earn more but it is mostly not growing organic but high demand of organic that brings people directly to farm which is more of the recipe of success.
• Orchards/Plantation: Mostly fruit trees, with some single tree over entire plantation as large as 30 acre but mostly a mix of fruits which have different seasons.
• Mixed cropping: Inter-cropping of plants that support each other either by providing nutrition or by reducing impact of disease and pest.
• Multi-layer farming: Maximum utilisation of resources using 3–5 different crops growing at different heights.
• Supporting business/activity: vermi-composting to reduce cost of fertilisers, dairy to get additional income and establishing cow based agriculture, poultry for additional income.
• Hydroponics and Polyhouse: Still not very prevalent because of investment involved and lack of skills and knowledge.
• Monocropping: Mono-cropping is still very prevalent though but mostly with exotic or non-conventional crops. Rare instances of single conventional crop were seen.

Things to focus on

• Organic is not the key: A lot of people choose various organic models to improve soil health and because of ethical reasons. While organic reduces input cost, it does increase labour cost considerably. It also increases the chance of disease and pest attack. Also, the major reason of success of organic is being able to sell organic out of traditional markets preferably to end consumer.
• Diversify: Whether it be using multi-crop systems like mixed-cropping, multi-layer farming, Agroforestry, Permaculture etc. or by taking up supporting business activities, diversification reduces risk considerably and increases revenue.
• Resources and investment: Some models require more labour and time like organic while others require more upfront investment like hydroponics and polyhouse. Also, the day to day activities involved changes considerably.
• Long term gain and short term risk: Switching to a new model is a long term investment but most of these models will give considerable returns in long run either by reducing cost or by increasing sources of income. But on contrary, the short term risk is also there which cannot be ignored. Some models like agro-forestry, orchards etc. do have a long waiting period before the income kicks in.
• Support system: Someone who has worked on the model for a long time can tell you a lot of small things that will help you avoid major pitfalls and beginner mistakes of the model.

Risk and Gain factors

• Investment: Most of these models have upfront investment which becomes a risk factor in case it fails.
• Diversification: Diversification of income sources will reduce risk of total loss and will increase overall profits.
• Lack of experience: There are a lot of small things that contribute to success of a model. Being new to any model hence has this inherent risk.

Land Preparation

We found the land preparation to be a very strategically planned activity with long term interest of crop and management of farm given a lot of attention.

Observed Patterns

• Drip Irrigation: Most of the success stories we came across used drip irrigation for its numerous benefits involving less use of water, efficient application of fertilisers and chemicals and reduction of weed.
• Water harvesting: Some of the organic models and small scale models relied on water harvesting by building small ponds in the field or using community watershed models. Recharging ground water was another major focus.
• Mulching: Mulching was also used, mostly plastic but in organic and permaculture models natural mulching was used more often. Plastic mulching was generally used along with drip irrigation and raised bed. Appropriate crop density can be used to ensure quality of harvest, manage growth of plants and ease of operability of farm.
• Supporting System: Whether it be a supporting system for creepers to grow on, systems to manage crop environment or supporting trees and plants to provide necessary nutrition to main crop, they were given special attention with long term gains in sight.
• Organic matter: Even those who are dependent on chemicals for optimum crop growth add organic matter to their soil and it is at the core of any organic system.

Things to focus on

• Water management: Reducing water consumption and conserving it will save cost and is also critical to reduce risk. Excessive water is equally dangerous to crops as it invites many diseases especially fungal damage.
• Soil health: Managing organic matter in soil, applying fertilisers based on soil health card and reducing excessive use of chemicals will improve soil health and hence long term fertility.
• Mulching: It prevents growth of weed, conserves soil moisture, promotes organic matter growth in soil and keeps harvest clean. In a lot of crops, mulching can make a lot of difference.
• Farm operability: If you are planning to use any type of machines then your farm should be designed so. Being able to regularly monitor and manage your farm is extremely important to take preventive and early measure against crop damages.
• Supporting systems: Supporting systems can help maximise the returns from a crop by creating favourable environment for crop growth and reduce risks against various damage causing agents.

Risk and Gain factors

• Water Management: Efficiently using water will reduce risk to the crop due to climate variations, soil and root related damages and weeds. It also reduces cost and hence contribute to overall increase in gains.
• Preventive measures: Various planning activities can be used to prevent weeds, diseases, nutrition mismanagement etc. This reduces risks and also spends on chemicals which is a major contributor to modern agriculture cost.
• Growth management: Use of supporting systems, beds, appropriate crop density, controlled irrigation etc. can be used to manage the growth of crop, maximise harvest and its quality. Which in turn leads to higher revenues.

Seed selection

While there is not much innovation here, we observed a basic pattern and a few interesting instances that make the difference.

Observed patterns

• Desi for organic: Most organic growers prefer desi seeds for their higher resilience and better response to organic fertilisation. Mostly these seeds are farm grown or exchanged with peer farmers.
• Hybrid for quality: Those using chemical dependent methods prefer hybrid seeds that provide high quality yield and then corresponding nutrition is applied to maximise harvest.
• Demand management: Some farmers use a good understanding of market to decide specific properties of expected harvest and use that knowledge to decide seed varieties.

Things to focus on

• Soil, water and environment: Various variety perform differently in different conditions. It is hence important to consider seeds that fit you.
• Agriculture model: Various models will affect what resources will be available for a crop and hence is important to consider.
• Cost vs Gain: Desi varieties are more resilient and hence reduce input cost but generally have lower output as compared to hybrids.
• Market: Providing higher quality product will always fetch more price. Understanding what is in demand in market and is low in supply can help fetch higher price simply by changing seed variety.

Risk and gain factors

• Environment: Not being able to provide the right environment to a sensitive seed can lead to unexpectedly bad results.
• Market: Growing a variety that can get higher market price will always be beneficial.

Sowing

• Treating seeds at the time of sowing can prevent common known and expected diseases. We observed this to be true for both organic and chemical based farming techniques.
• Some farmers reduced number of seeds required by planting individual seeds on drip.
• An efficient way of growing paddy saved nursery cost and reduced time to prepare the field by sowing paddy directly in the standing “dhencha” crop and ploughing it.

Fertilisation

As mentioned earlier, use of organic fertilisers is uniform while chemicals when used are used sensibly and mostly as fertigation.

Observed patterns

• Cow based or Jeevamrit: Jeevamrit is the most repeated word by organic farmers. Essentially a cow dung based fertiliser.
• Compost: Mostly vermi-compost, used both by organic farmers and those who use chemicals too.
• Fertigation: Wherever drip is available, whether organic or chemical based, fertigation is used for efficient application of fertiliser.
• Green manuring: Another efficient way of managing nutrients is to use the permaculture philosophy of letting soil decompose previous crop’s residue.

Things to focus on

• Soil health: Most successful farmers use compost or green manuring to maintain organic matter of the soil and improve its health.
• Efficiency: Whether it be usage of soil health card or fertigation, the idea is to add only enough chemicals to the soil as much is needed.

Risk and gain factors

• Cost: Some farmers would say that adding compost is costly while efficient use of SHC and fertigation can save a lot on same front.

Growth Management

Small things add marginal advantages which can impact the end results enough to make the difference.

Observed patterns

• Sprays: Organic farmers mostly use Jeevamrit while chemical based models have multiple options based on crop but only to be used in prescribed quantities.
• Irrigation: Controlling irrigation and fertilisation as per crop stage to regulate growth.
• Support system: Providing necessary support system can accelerate the growth. whether it be supporting plants/trees or artificial structures.
• Canopy management: Specially relevant in case of plantations and orchards, maintaining the shape and structure of trees give a lot of advantage.
• Density management: Done both on plant and fruit level, It controls the amount of nutrition available to each plant or fruit. High density is used for intensification of crop and maximum utilisation of nutrition while density is reduced to ensure higher quality by optimum distribution of resources.

Things to focus on

• Optimisation: Maximise use of resources but also ensure that it doesn’t reduce the quality of harvest. Over-utilisation of resources will impact quality.
• Control and operability: Managing growth such that you can control the crop cycle and also operate through the farm at all times. Un-managed growth can have unexpected effects.

Risk and gain factors

• Quality: Focusing on excessive growth can sometimes affect quality or may lead to unwanted results.
• Cost: Excessive use of chemicals to promote growth will increase cost and beyond a point harvest wouldn’t change significantly while efficient manage leads to optimum and quality harvest at lowest cost.

Disease, Pest and Weed Management

Observed patterns

• Jeevamrit and other bio-weapons: Jeevamrit is constantly used across board by organic farmers, while contrary to popular belief they have multiple such solutions to deal with various type of issues like lassi, neemastra, brahmastra etc.
• Cropping patterns: Using higher density to avoid weeds or inter-cropping pest resistant crops like marigold is a preventive measure that one can take. Multi-layer farming uses a herb layer to avoid weed problem altogether.
• Mulching and drip irrigation: Both mulching and drip irrigation act as a preventive measure against weeds.
• Traps: Use of traps can avoid a lot of pests and can act as alert system to identify the infesting agent.
• Preventive sprays: Preventive sprays in prescribed quantities for known disease and infesting agents can reduce the damage considerably.

Things to focus on

• Avoid abuse: Don’t overuse chemicals. It will also keep the cost down.
• Preventive measures: Preventive measures cost a lot less as compared to the damage or investment in dealing with the damage.

Risk and gain factor

• Cost: All measures to manage disease, pest and weed come with a cost. Excessive use will drive the cost up and margins down, while efficient use can reduce risk considerably.
• Crop damage: This is one of the biggest risk factor for a crop and efficiently managing it will bring the risk down.

Harvesting

There is not much innovation in harvesting but around harvesting there are a few things that we found interesting.

Observed patterns

• Nurturing for quality: Some people plan their harvest as soon as the fruit is on the plant for best quality. We have seen packaging of fruit on plant itself to protect it from damage and ensure smooth texture, reducing load of the plant by reducing number of fruits etc.
• Market advantage: In some cases, market advantage is available due to specific reasons like upcoming events, religious festivals etc. Taking advantage of such events by harvesting at the right time can bring slightly higher price.
• Preparing for next cycle: In multi-layer farming, harvesting is done by uprooting plants instead of cutting as it prepares the soil for next sowing. In organic or permaculture style farming, the waste is used to cover the soil and then ploughed in the ground to increase organic matter. One can also use the harvest residue as mulch for next crop.

Things to focus on

• Quality: The better the quality of your harvest, higher the price you will get.
• Control: If you can control your harvest then you can take advantage of market variations to bag higher price.
• Efficiency: Improve efficiency by reducing labour cost in harvesting and reducing time to prepare soil for next season.

Risk and gain factor

• Quality: Better the quality, higher the price.

Storage and processing

You have to do some sort of value add to get better price. Don’t just harvest, load and go to market.

Observed patterns

• Ready for consumption: For stuff like Turmeric, Moringa where the general consumption is in powder form, farmers were powdering before selling. Similarly selling atta instead of wheat grains. Similarly basic processing of rice can contribute to a lot of value add. As expected, these activities generally correspond with selling directly to consumers.
• Value addition: In some cases, farmers went a step farther to convert their harvest into a value added product like making biscuits, sugarcane juice and Jaggery, Pickles etc. This is also an essential component of permaculture philosophy and hence a trend among permaculture farmers.
• Quality management: A lot of people, especially the ones who work with traditional markets focus a lot on quality. Simple stuff like washing, sorting and drying is fetching them slightly better price than peers. Specifically in orchards, maintaining fruit level quality by packaging the fruits on tree itself brings a much higher price than peers.

Things to focus on

• Value Addition
• Quality

Risk and gain factor

• Value addition

Marketing

Seems like cutting out the middleman does make a difference but not when you sell to big buyers who are the biggest middlemen with huge cuts. From our experience the major difference for a lot of farmers came from how and where they sell. Either that they are producing such good harvest that they are able to unlock those opportunities or may be they produce good harvest to be able to serve that market. Anyway good harvest meeting great markets is foundation of most of the success stories.

Observed patterns

• No one is selling “Organic”: Interestingly none of the farmers we came across is selling a “organic certified” produce. For their buyers, their farming practices is a certificate enough for them to go organic.
• Contracts: Some farmers found that they could cut a deal directly with some medium sized buyers like hotels etc. and supply them on a regular basis for a fixed price. A flower grower and a lemon orchard owner used this to convert agriculture into monthly income trade.
• High value segment: Mostly in dairy and organic, farmers are able to demand high price for their products for example milk selling at Rs. 80 per litre while customer is picking at farm and Rs. 160 per litre when delivered at home.
• On farm sale: We heard enough of “Log khet pe ake khud hi lejate hain”, especially in case of organic. This is simply a case of demand-supply mismatch. As more and more consumers become aware of hazards of chemical based farming they are looking for authentic organic food and they spread the word in a community of like minded people.
• Creating a brand: Not necessarily the kind that comes with advertising and packaging but when you consistently deliver quality products then you yourself become a brand which allows users to recommend you to peers. A lot of people have become a brand big enough that now they are selling produce of their peer farmers on their behalf for a small commission.
• Unlocking new markets: Not everyone can go directly to market, not everyone is going. Some farmers are unlocking value by identifying markets that would fetch them higher price for same product. Whether it be a big farmer going to international markets or a small one going to the larger district market instead of the nearest one.
• Leveraging traditional markets: Some farmers were just producing consistently high quality produce and selling in traditional markets for slightly higher price than their peers. Consistent quality ensured that they had buyers bidding higher price.

Things to focus on

• Quality: None of these strategies would have worked if the produce wasn’t of quality better than what is available in the market. Without quality, no market will sustain.
• Consistency: You have to deliver the quality consistently to make yourself a brand, a reliable supplier. This will allow you to be able to quote your own price.
• Get closer to the consumer: The value most of the middlemen create is efficiently connecting producer to consumer. Closer you get to consumer, more of this value is created by you and hence higher your cut.
• Market leverages: Even in traditional market there are certain leverages that you can use, like when the demand is generally higher in the market. Who will actually pay real worth of your produce because of their specific demand and so on.

Risk and gain factors

• Effort: It is not easy to go to consumer directly without investing a lot of effort and time which in turn risks the entire operation. Especially in a high frequency produce like vegetables, horticulture, floriculture etc.
• Scale: Direct to consumer strategies don’t scale very nicely for a farmer. For small scale farms it is easy to manage but for larger farms it becomes complicated and as you take on more users it becomes equally complicated.
• Consistency: Maintaining consistency is not tough especially with the risks involved in the farming. If you are able to deliver consistent results then you have already solved the problem of agriculture being a high risk business.
• Margins: Traditional markets have low margins because of the complex supply chains are highly inefficient and hence the losses involved and number of hops involved. This leads to lower and lower margins for farmers.
• Volatility: General markets are highly volatile due to a variety of reasons, all beyond control of a farmer. Non-traditional markets though can have a higher consistency.
• Demand: Demand controls price, to some extent. Understanding demand and accordingly supplying to the market can create an advantage for you.
• Aggregation: One of the values supply chain mediators create is aggregation of supply. If a group of peer farmers can aggregate supply then they can control the prices better in their favour.

Bottom line

It is true that not all farmers can successfully emulate all of these strategies. But the fact is that each one of them can start with trying out one or two of these things, make them work and use the leverages hence created to work on next one. A very few of these farmers became successful overnight. It is constant experimentation, innovation and a farmer’s grit that brought them where they are today.