Our farmer network
Farmer co-operative – Why and How?
In modern day agriculture, the management of the value chain – from cultivation to end point consumption is fragmented. It is fragmented in terms of the stakeholders and the understanding and development of these by the domain experts from these specific fragments.
The many troubles affecting agriculture today is due to this approach. Food is being cultivated, harvested and collected in isolation from how it is processed, stored, packed, sold, served and also consumed. These days most quality issues concerning food, like contamination, adulteration, nutrition and safety, are a result of this fragmentation.
Another concerning issue of the current scenario is the disproportionate share of consumer spend which goes back to the producer. In most cases, the producer share is always a lot less when compared to the processor, marketing agency and retailer’s share. This makes organic farming non-viable to the farmers and there by not only lower organic production but also erode productive has not only been eroding the productive capacities of natural resources on which food production is dependent.
In our efforts to educate the farmers in organic farming techniques we found that farmers also lacked the necessary support system of on time advice, supervision and guidance with regard to government policies and subsidies.
We also observed that the required external organic inputs for better conditioning of soil and growth of plants is not easily available.
In our concerted efforts to tie these diverse segments together and to achieve efficiencies of scale, Adya naturals as a farmer’s co-operative was formed. We are engaged with over 1630 farmers across various states of India.
Through better management of natural resources at the farm level, it is possible to reduce the overall cost of cultivation.
By efficient procurement after primary processing at the farm itself and using innovative scientific methods of storage, appropriate packaging solutions without using any toxic preservatives, a reduction in final price of certified organic products can be offered straight to consumers. This makes organic food accessible to a larger populace whose demand will result in a need to produce even more.
Adya Naturals, as a farmers’ cooperative will work towards
- Capacity building of farmers through Trainings, Demonstrations, Inspections, Certification etc.
- To create awareness about chemical free foods among the farmers.
- Provide a unique ID to the farmers for traceability record management.
- Web based traceability management for organic production.
- On-farm Input management (Compost, Vermi-Compost, Vermi-wash, NADEP, CPP etc).
- Internal control systems (ICS Management) for effective organic technique implementation
- Supply of organic certified Bio-fertilizers and Bio-pesticides.
- Soil Sampling & Testing.
- To improve the soil health for sustainable production.
- To improve the skill of farmers for adoption of Organic Farming.
- To channelize the certifying agency and maintain the traceability of the farm.
- Marketing management of organic Horticultural and Agricultural produce.
Adya Naturals as part of its global vision, plans to
- Enroll farmer groups, farmer clusters across India
- Promote organic farming to uninitiated farmers
- Educating and sensitizing corporates on the challenges and benefits of organic farming.
- Pan India support system for organic farmers for any queries regarding organic farming techniques
- Provide quality indigenous seed for organic farming
- Promote eco-farm tourism
- Expose marginal farmers to the potential of exporting good quality organic produce to international markets
- Connect globally to other organic associations across the globe to source organic super foods not available in India for the Indian consumers
- In house toxicology lab, to support low cost testing for toxic residues.