Farmers are the backbone of our economy. However, the farmer fraternity contends with a slew of challenges and is often exploited at the behest of unscrupulous middlemen (brokers).
North East Farm Sales Promotion is a startup incubated under Assam Startup that is relentlessly striving to resolve the day to day and long term operational challenges faced by the farmer community of the north eastern region.
North East Farm Sales Promotion offers on-demand processing and packaging services, addresses the
common branding needs of farmers and extends support in retailing, exports, and institutional sales.
Realising that the farmers are often forced by the middlemen to sell the perishable items at a much
lower price due to the unavailability of cold storage facilities, NEFSP has also started offering a bouquet of sorting, grading, pouching and vacuuming services to the farmers. For instance, ginger is grinded into pouched ginger paste, pineapple pieces are freshly tinned, while oranges are bottled up into squash. The startup procures the agricultural produce/products from the farmers at a price which is 1.2 times higher than the market and sells it across the country.
While farmers in several parts of the country have received a major blow due to the Covid lockdowns, NEFSP has been regularly procuring products like black rice, king chili, beans, turmeric, black pepper, handmade soaps, etc. from its partner small farmers at premium prices and marketing the finished units across India. Besides, the startup is also churning out innovative value added products like Naga Chili, safety spray and natural room fresheners, etc.
When Melange contacted Bhanu Pratap Singh the founder of NEFSP he was actually very caught up in his work. However, he complied with an interview as he reiterated that more and more farmers and also people connected with the welfare of farmers must read about his enterprise.
How would you describe North East India Farm Sales Promotion?
North East Farm Sales Promotion (NEFSP) was formed to promote the north eastern region of our country across the globe and to benefit small as well as the medium and large farmer groups. This benefit is envisaged through interventions on procurement, processing, packaging, branding and marketing etc.
What was the understanding /insight or inspiration behind your entrepreneurial venture?
Well the north eastern region is a god gifted region and is naturally endowed with unique products in all food categories. Be it fruits, vegetables, rice, spices, tea or forest produce the varieties are enormous. However, despite this fact the agricultural products from this region (barring tea ofcourse) are not known much internationally or even nationally. The North East should have achieved a brand name for its variegated agricultural products but this has not happened. Moreover the wide and exotic array of agricultural products has not benefited the producers and the economy in the way that it should have.
What are the specific challenges and milestones of your journey so far? What is your vision and future roadmap?
Talking about challenges I would say that there is a dearth of capital to invest on quality packaging, equipment, human resources, marketing and promotional activities. Overall as I stated, there is less awareness about NE India's agro products in the rest of India. This ofcourse makes our work doubly challenging. Most of the private sector suppliers of packaging material/raw material are from outside the region. These suppliers are usually unethical and unscrupulous and do not support small start ups. They focus on making maximum possible profit at one go while supplying anything to small start ups.
In terms of milestones I would say that we have become biggest brand of NE India having 70 different kinds of products from across the eight NE states in the categories of spice, rice, pickles, tea, bamboo, naturals and value added products. We are the biggest brand dealing with 10 NE GI Products including Joha rice, Boka rice, Karbi Anglong ginger, Orthodox tea, Naga Chilly, Large Cardamom from Sikkim, Manipur Kachai lemon pickle, Black rice and others.
We are running this region's biggest agro produce showroom outside (i.e. outside the NE). This showroom is located at India's highest tourist footfall location, Statue of Unity, Gujarat. We have provided packaging services of approximately 35000 units to farmers of Assam and Nagaland. We scripted history by becoming, the first exporter from NE to export products (GI tagged) to Vietnam in May 2022. Another milestone is that we have been selected by the IIM Calcutta Innovation programme for the NE Focus Accelerator programme sponsored by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency). We are amongst 18 companies that have been selected (from across the country) by the Government of Germany for a 15 day period of trainings and meetings. Our objective is to source sustainable eco friendly packaging solutions and also to place unique rice and bamboo products of Assam in retail stores of Germany.
Our vision is to brand and promote the North East Region as a hub of quality, niche (and organic by tradition) premium products and promote the economy of the region. We also envisage increasing the income of the producers by atleast threefold.
We have a seven pronged road map. We want to set up a large common facility center (on packaging) for medium and large farmer groups in Assam. Secondly we want to set up a small/micro common facility center on modern packaging in all NE states capitals. Eventually we want to set up these centres in every district. Thirdly we want to develop recipes for products made from locally available raw materials and also research on traditional food/neutraceticals and bring these to the world. Fourthly we want to open, NE GI and Unique Products Stores (our brand of stores) in top tourist locations and metro cities (own and franchise model). Fifthly we also want to open NE GI and Unique products stores in different parts of the world. Ensuring livelihood with dignity to small farmers and the poorest of the poor farmers of NE (by providing them assured procurement, immediate premium payments and profit sharing from whole revenue) is the sixth imperative of our roadmap. Last but not the least we want to ensure that all packed products of groups/FPOs from NE, go out in the market, properly branded, designed and packed in attractive packaging material.
What are the social objectives of your entrepreneurial venture? How do you envisage making a positive impact on the ecosystem in which your enterprise is operating?
For us, the definition of a 'good' company is where the company generates returns not just for 'investors' but also for 'producers'; where the latter are also shareholders. We do not aim for 'big'; rather we aim for the greatest good of the producers at the bottom of the pyramid (based on existing land ownership and not disruption for corporate scale). We also aim for a model that treats nature as capital; as something to be preserved and built. We want to build rural futures and develop a virtuous, sustainable 'circular' economy where nothing is wasted.
Here are some social initiatives that we have taken:
1) A 10% higher than market price for procurement and 1 % sharing of revenue with respective producers
2) Implementing the principle of PPP - Procurement from poorest of poor farmers
3) PROVESH - Procurement for processing of unsold products from road side vegetable sellers at night (to be operational in next 4 months)
4) Vending carts for road side sellers (to be operational in next 9 months)
5) Assured Procurement with premium price from below poverty line farmers residing on small islands (Saporis/Chars) of Assam in partnership with a leading social organisation of state
How important is training and mentoring for an entrepreneur? Which are the organisations that are building entrepreneurs in our state? Any other facilitating factors that are needed?
Training sharpens and develops skills and knowledge, which are of utmost importance in running a enterprise.
Mentoring on the other hand ensures that the skills and efforts are in the right direction. Along with hard work, strategic decisions are key factors in success of enterprises.
Assam Start up with IIM Calcutta Innovation Park is the main nodal organisation building up entrepreneurship in the state. The Indian Institute of Enterpreneurship is also doing excellent work. NEDFI, NRL etc are supporting start ups with financial grant/equity. A few incubators of the agricultural sector are also running in the state. IIT Guwahati is working on technology based start ups in state. Last but not the least various colleges and private universities are also coming up with startup/entrepreneurship cells .
Talking about facilitating factors I would say that the eco system is building slowly in the state and the start up sector of Assam is evolving towards becoming one of best in India. I personally feel that now more youngsters need to come forward and become entrepreneurs. A person with strong dedication and passion, who wants to contribute in the success of Assam, North east and India, shall surely become successful.
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