The Farming Monk
agricultural food system which values uniformity” – FAO
Did you buy from a farmer today?
Introduction
“Around half a century ago India was home to over 100,000 rice varieties, encompassing a stunning diversity in taste, nutrition and crucially in this age of climate change – adaptability to a range of climatic conditions. Every community had its own varieties. Today there could be just 6,000, with fewer being grown every year. The rest are no longer cultivated and the knowledge of how to grow them will have been lost.” – Dr. Debal Deb
Conservation of diversity is crucial not only to maintain a diverse gene pool which can be instrumental in developing desired varieties in future; for instance, to counter climate change – we may develop crops that are climate resilient, disease and pest resistant varieties may be developed. Native varieties are also,
Good for environment – native varieties are adapted to the local Agro-climatic conditions and hence, unlike conventional varieties they don’t need chemical inputs for better yield, which in turn reduces harmful residual chemicals in our food chain, water bodies et al.
Makes agriculture profitable – indigenous seed can be reused for next crop; native crops need no chemical inputs; this results in cost saving on Agri-inputs and in turn better profits per acre for the farmer.
Addressing farmer’s food and nutritional security – native varieties flourish even in harsh climatic conditions and are nutritionally superior to conventional varieties (we discovered this through lab tests). This ensure farmer has access to nutritious food to eat.
Addressing end consumers nutritional and taste needs – our recent experiences have shown that urban consumers desire the rich aroma and taste of these rare varieties. Being rich in minerals like iron and calcium
More than a decade ago, the need for conservation of indigenous crop and cattle diversity in the state of Maharashtra was identified by BAIF (Bhartiya Agro Industries Foundation) Development Research Foundation, they advocated this need with the state government which resulted in the genesis of the MGB (Maharashtra Gene Bank) program – aimed at identification of endangered native crop and cattle species and their conservation.
BAIF’s efforts for over a decade have resulted in conservation of over 200 paddy, 100 vegetable and millet varieties, which were on the verge of extinction and only a handful of tribal farmers were growing these for self-consumption. Tribal farmers played a vital role in the whole process, having conserved these indigenous varieties for generations, they could provide folk wisdom on the health benefits, traditional ways of growing and preparing dishes from these native varieties. In most likelihood, after the conclusion of the MGB program, the conservation efforts would roll back to square one.
To make the conservation efforts sustainable without external impetus, there was need to incentivize the efforts and hence TFM – “The Farming Monk” came into the picture.
The Farming Monk
TFM is a farmer’s brand promoted by BAIF. TFM stands for conservation of indigenous farm produce. The vision behind TFM is to create market linkages for niche produce to incentivise the diversity conservation efforts – indigenous rice varieties are currently being marketed under TFM, going ahead other native crops, native vegetable seeds for urban kitchen/terrace gardens will also be included in the product portfolio.
The brand name “The Farming Monk” resonates with the story of today’s farmer who works in the farm day-in and day-out every season without expecting much in return but to sustain from a season to another, he/she provides food for all and is being compared to a Monk. We will try to evaluate TFM’s approach on the 4 P’s of marketing (Product, place, Price, Promotion), we will briefly touch upon price in the challenges section.
Where? (Place)
“The Farming Monk” is bringing rare indigenous rice varieties to the market (Currently selling in Pune). Out of the 200 varieties of native rice that is conserved under the MGB program, a handful were picked on the basis of some tangible marketable quality like aroma, taste, health benefits, appearance etc. and their quantum to make them part of TFM’s portfolio.
TFM promotes healthy food by selling mineral rich hand-pounded indigenous rice, that’s not only rich in taste and aroma, but also rich in dietary fiber, Vit. B12 and has low GI. Therefore, being ideal for management of lifestyle diseases like Diabetics.
A typical buyer of TFM’s product is a discerning consumer who’s looking for healthy and tasty alternative to rice available through conventional market channels, who is seeking farm to fork channels for their food, is interested in native produce and may have tried or heard of these varieties at some point in time.
Where? (Place)
TFM products are rare due to the current production constraints, therefore it’s not feasible to distribute them through conventional mass market channels like local grocery stores, supermarkets and large online marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart etc. The nature of TFM products allows us to distribute them through niche channels only, apart from selling through VAPCOL outlet at BAIF Campus in Warje, Pune, we are reaching out to potential customers through exhibitions and community markets in Pune, corporate pop-up’s through CSR partners, we take and service orders over WhatsApp business from customers who are already in our CRM database. Going ahead we are looking at B2B sales through niche retailers in the city (Organic, curated and specialty stores). We have also compiled a list of potential customers; this is a dynamic list which will be ever-growing and has reached around 3000 today, we are getting in touch with them to educate them about our product and help them with the purchase decision.
How? (Promotion)
We have compiled all the rich history and information on native rice varieties from the 4 clusters through our farmers and field staff to develop content – Catalogue of our products, folk wisdom on each variety, our journey et al. And we are reaching out to people, to educate them about these varieties and their significance. For instance – they are rich in various minerals like iron and calcium; they are aromatic and rich in taste; grown organically, contribute to a farmer’s food and nutritional security, resilient to climate change, how a farmer gets 20-100% more for growing native varieties when compared with conventionally varieties, the brand is owned by the farmers and all the profit goes back to them etc.
Challenges and counter arguments
A popular argument against selling rare indigenous varieties is “When the farmer grows for market, he no longer consumes these varieties which affects his nutrition.” On the contrary our observation has been that, the farmer only consumes native varieties and sells the surplus.
We will keep a close eye on any deviation in our farmer’s dietary habits and take remedial measures in required. Limited quantities – production of these varieties is limited and this puts a constraint on supplies, going ahead we are expanding area under production with assure buyback, which should alleviate this constraint to certain extend.
Prices for our rice varieties are a bit on the higher side due to higher prices paid to the farmer and higher overheads, both of these issues would resolve with increase in volumes. Higher volumes will allow us to achieve economies of scale, resulting in lower overhead per kilo of product. Also, greater volumes will ensure free market economy prevails, bringing down prices at farm gate.
