Digital agriculture

An ‘agtech’ platform that aims to bring its services across the agricultural value chain, FarmERP collaborates with several national and international corporates, agribusinesses, research programs, FPOs and FPCs, and policy-makers to further their mission of making agriculture more profitable and predictable for all stakeholders. Sanjay Borkar, co-founder and CEO, in an exclusive interview with Indian Management, gives insights on this unique farm management tool.

- SANJAY BORKAR

Tell us about FarmERPMy colleague Santosh and I both come from an agricultural background. During our college days we saw the plight of the farmers and stakeholders involved in the industry who were not getting the right remuneration for their produce. They faced a lot of problems because of the lack of information and knowledge, amenities, business connections, and market linkage. This was majorly because agronomic processes were not practised as a business in those days. There was no ‘revenue model’. With this market insight, we incepted FarmERP with the aim of assisting farmers and making the operations of the businesses more profitable by way of improving productivity with the help of information technology.

How does FarmERP help businesses (its customers)?

FarmERP is incredibly comprehensive as a platform. We have taken all farm operations to maps, QR code-based access control across the business processes, the implementation of agriculture-focused accounting and costing module, hydroponic packs, IoT device integrations, etc. We have also established relationships with prominent FPOs and FPCs focusing on the crux of empowering farmers directly using our technology platform. FarmERP is best-known for their project of ‘Uberization of Agriculture for smallholder vegetable growers’, a notable contribution to the space of Indian agriculture. The Uberization project was aimed at enabling smallholder farmers to make their farming journey predictable, as well as hone efficient daily practices.

India is largely an agro-based economy and is rapidly transforming into a digital one. How is FarmERP leveraging the huge business potential that the country presents?