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Technology has been a vital driver of growth and value-enablement for farmer collectives in Samunnati’s journey

In 2020 in the midst of the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns that followed, Vizhudugal Farmers Producer Company (FPC), in Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu, with over 1500 farmers in its fold, was desperately seeking to sell its agricultural produce—coriander, chilli, pulses, maize, onions and oil seeds. That was when agri-tech enterprise Samunnati stepped in to help them. “We were pushed into poverty during the Covid times. Samunnati enabled us to identify the suitable buyers in such difficult times,” says Kamaraj D of Vizhudugal FPC.

It was Samunnati’s open agri-network across 100-plus value chains linking more than 3300 agri-enterprises, whether producer organisations, farmer cooperatives, aggregators, traders on the supply side or demand generators such as processing units, wholesalers, exporters or modern retailers, which enabled this. “Samunnati leverages both social and trade capital alongside customised solutions to drive optimal returns and scale for every player in the agri value chain. ‘Social’ capital being assessment of soft information, social feedback, local networks and peers, and ‘trade’ capital being transaction history among the stakeholders through the length and value of the actual business potential and volumes,” says Anil Kumar SG, founder, Samunnati. “With the vision to impact one in every four farming households by 2027, we have created a meta platform in the agri-space which connects the fragmented smallholder farmer with the fragmented agricultural sector.”

Farmers’ collectives (FPCs/FPOs) have been the prime focus for Samunnati, with more than 1500 FPOs in its network. Since its inception in 2014, it has deployed over Rs 10,000 crore towards providing agri-commerce and agri-finance solutions to farmer collectives. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it has dispensed Rs 3,300 crore for credit accessibility and market linkages. Says Vadivel N, CEO, Ramanathapuram FPC: “We have close to 2000 farmer members. Our FPO had a turnover of Rs 1 crore, with income of `6 lakh during the Covid times. Samunnati procured tur dal, paddy, green gram, etc., from 300 farmers.”

Technology has been a vital driver of growth and value-enablement for farmer collectives in Samunnati’s journey. The startup has been working with farmer producer organisations (FPOs) across 22 states (30% of its business comes from Tamil Nadu) to enable farmers digitise their data and get actionable insights out of it. “We have also launched FPO Gateway to digitally optimise agri-commerce operations. The creation of this platform entails a revolution in the agri-space since it aims to connect the smallholder farmer with the larger markets, wherein they can engage in market linkages with the institutional buyers directly. FPO Gateway strives to foster a national framework for farming agreements and to empower farmers to transact with a range of buyers—exporters, wholesalers, agri-business firms. This initiative is in alignment with Samunnati’s vision to make the markets work for the smallholder farmers,” says Anil Kumar.

It has developed SamIPL, an online platform that provides instant pre-approved loans to small farmers with no collateral. A total of Rs 10 crore has been disbursed to over 200 FPOs within a span of 125 days. Then there’s AgriElevate, an online listing platform which digitally connects FPOs and agri-enterprises to fulfill all their agri-service needs.

“To utilise our data-smart assets we have been deploying satellite smart technology at farm monitoring level to leverage advances in remote sensing, machine learning, blockchain technology and big data analytics. About 15% of our gross transaction value (GTV) has been deployed into climate-smart compliant assets. The firm is expanding automated weather stations for FPOs to collect data that can be used to structure insurance products for the members of these collectives,” he adds.

Samunnati has powered over $1 billion of GTV in the last six years. GTV of Rs 2,650 crore was unlocked in FY’21 despite Covid and it aims to generate a GTV of Rs 5,000 crore in FY’22 . “Our monthly run rate stands at Rs 450 crore, we are doubling our finances year-on-year,” adds Anil Kumar.

It has recently tied up with the Federation of Indian FPOs and Aggregators (FIFA) and will assist it in setting up NAFED Electronic Kisan Mandis.