Problem Statement:
Currently farmers face a shortage of warehouses and cold storage systems, unfair pricing for their produce, and low
profitability. These issues, caused by a huge system of intermediaries, eventually lead to migration of rural youth to
urban areas for better opportunities. They also face issues in procuring loans from banks, stemming from the lack of a
credit history. These issues can collectively be solved through improvements in agricultural technologies to enhance
farmer capacities, providing them incentive to develop their livelihood within their village.

Defining the issues

1. Wastage of perishable goods due to lack of Warehouses/Cold storage.
2. Negligible profits due to lack of cold storage facilities
3. Unfair pricing for their produce and Limited reach of Mandis
4. Multiple intermediaries and lack of transparency and traceability
5. Rural youth is unemployed and unskilled
6. Lack of credit history of farmers
7. Poor Farming Techniques and resources and Water shortage for irrigation

Data Supporting Issues

Major revelations were made about

harvest and post-harvest losses in a
report by ICAR/CIPHET revealing
troubling indicators

Hypothesis (To be tested by primary research)

1. Farmers are looking for fair prices for their produce and would prefer to not travel large distances to sell them
2. Farmers would require an easy way to raise credit to buy equipment, pesticides, fertilizers etc
3. Financial Institutions require a strong mechanism to identify the credit worthiness of the farmers
4. Youth are looking for better-paid jobs & want to work in the supply chain

Solution Overview
We propose the creation of a robust supply chain that is managed and operated by rural people with the help of the
framework provided to them. The framework includes all processes, logistics as well as data that is used to provide
them credit-based loans. In order to make the framework more effective, various value-added processes are added to
the framework that includes the use of alternative ways to generate income from waste like poly houses, reverse supply
chain, etc.
Stakeholders
 Stakeholder Roles

Farmers •To sell produce and get credit scores using the platform
•Use the platform to educate themselves about the best practices in Farming
•Get pesticides, fertilizers and other products through reverse supply chain

Urban retailers •To buy produce and obtain credit scores through the platform

Truck Drivers •Transport produce and other products across the supply chain

Fulfillment center •Unload and load produce and other products in the trucks using dollies
Employees •Place excess produce in the cold storages and manage its settings

Fulfillment center •To manage operations of fulfillment centers and mapping the supply & demand
Management

Financial Institutions •Using the credit scores generated and data collected to allot a suitable credit line to
(Banks and NBFCs) farmers and retailers to provide loans

IT Service Provider (App •Development and Maintenance of the application

development + Analytics) •Data analysis to optimize logistics and also find credit scores

Rural Kirana Stores •Provide information about the demand and receive products from city

Government •Provide support and subsidies through Skill India, and Digital India initiatives

Establishing the Supply Chain Framework

A framework is developed which provides the complete solution to the rural right from producers to retailers, by
eliminating the intermediaries and also providing them employment in villages and stops migration
.
Logistics (Transportation)
Our objective is to minimize the transportation cost and delivery time. Transportation costs grow with the number of
vehicles and the type of vehicle(such as trucks, tempos and so on). Delivery time involves optimizing distance between
collection points and quality of routes chosen by the vehicles. The delivery time data can be collected and optimized via
the usage of Google Maps API.
Currently, we are considering a reverse milk run method for delivering goods from farmers to fulfilment
centres. The operator will follow their pre-decided routes, collect the produce depending on their capacities and drop it
off at the fulfilment centres. This allows more frequent collection of materials and collect supplies from more than one
area. Logistics companies like Blackbuck can be brought in to deal with setting up the logistics chains.

Fulfilment Centers
The fulfillment center is the physical location that will be built to cater to the demand and supply gap along the value
chain. The fulfillment centers would be strategically placed to reduce the distance from the villages supplying produce
and the city. This can be done by optimizing the location of the warehouse through linear programming. Moreover, the
fulfillment center will be close to major villages or towns to get access to trucks from the vicinity. Loading and Unloading
of produce from trucks will happen in the fulfilment center. The produce will be transferred by making use of dollies for
fast and easy transfer. The extra produce will be stored in the cold storage in the fulfillment center as buffer stock.

The fulfillment center will be run entirely

by Rural Entrepreneurs. The work
involving the transfer of produce and
managing the cold storages will be
handled by the low-skilled rural people.

Reverse supply chain

We plan to implement the reverse supply
chain to reduce the insufficient utilization
of resources owing to the fact that the
trucks return back without any load. This
reverse supply chain would involve local
village vendors such as kirana owners
who are in constant need of products to sell to local villagers. They would have an option placing an order on the app
which will be collected via the trucks delivering the crops to the cities on their way back to the fulfillment center. This
would also be used to cater to the farmers in the need of fertilizers and pesticides.

Agricultural Improvement Technologies

Polyhouse
Def: Polyhouse is a house or a structure made of translucent material like
glass or polyethylene where the plants grow and develop under controlled
climatic conditions.
We plan to develop a polyhouse with the fulfilment center. The polyhouse
will grow plants (Mostly fruit bearing ones) till the infant stage enough to be
later planted on fields by farmers. Giving them proper care earlier will
ensure that they can give better yields when replanted on the fields. This
will enable farmers to grow better quality fruits at their orchard and get
more profit.

Solar cold storage systems

Solar as a primary energy source is sustainable and attractive because of its universal applicability, low environmental
impact and low or no fuel cost. Solar adsorption refrigeration devices are of significance to meet the needs for cooling
requirements such as air-conditioning, ice-making and medical or food preservation in remote areas. They are also
noiseless, non-corrosive and environmentally friendly. Food transport refrigeration is important as it maintains
temperature during transportation and also reduces CO2 emission.

Cost comparison of two models

S.No Parameters Solar Hybrid Mobile Multipurpose Solar Adsorption Refrigeration
Cold Storage System Cold Storage System

1 Principle used Solar hybrid vapor compression refrigeration Adsorption refrigeration

2 Total input power (Watts) 1000 600

3 Operation Time 12 hrs 1/3 hr

4 Components that consume Motor + cold storage Compressor

power

5 Coefficient of performance 1.11 0.28

6 Cost per day (Rs) 72 2

Assume cost per unit is Rs 6.

Application

This app (prototype) integrates a centralized mechanism

that allows farmers, kirana owners and village shop
owners, city vendors and truck drivers to place orders,
track orders in real time, check the credit score and
help farmers with what crop they should grow.

The primary components will be as follows:

● Buy: This will enable the customers to buy the

products which farmers have added to sell
● Sell: With this, farmers can sell their products
and add the quantity and type of product they
have
● Tracking: This will help the customers to track
where has their order been reached
● Soil and Agriculture Data: This will contain the
database of each farmer's agricultural data such
as soil type, crops they grow, fertilizers they use
(organic/inorganic), etc.
● Credit History: This is a kind of credit score by
which they can get a loan. It will indicate how much a farmer's capability to pay back the loan if they are given
one.
Drishtee’s Role

Value Proposition
Creating value at every node across the chain!

Aasaan Kisaan envisions a profitable,

self-sufficient and innovative two-way
agricultural value chain operated entirely by
rural stakeholders, by leveraging data-driven
insights, key partnerships and Drishtee’s
significant executive experience.

Our Team