Consulting : Home
As we operate in the field of procurement and distribution of farm produce and perishables , efarm interacts with wide cross section of stakeholders for our own operations. One key gap we find is that though there is a lot of focus to produce an item, not much planning is done with regards to its marketing. Also aspects such as storage, transport costs are not adequately worked out before ventures are started. Hence , several ambitious projects for improving livelihoods for farmers, SHGs etc., often have not become sustainable and long term viable .
Most consultants currently in the field are primarily agricultural scientists who may be aware of the production side but not very competent in the management aspects such as marketing, branding,supply chain planning and technology adoption which are crucial for scaling up an idea.
eFarm offers consulting in following key areas.
Farm Planning and Management
Planning what to grow, when to grow, when to harvest, past price trends are very key for a successful farm.We advice farmers on planning the cultivation based on market demands , cost of production, price fixation, sorting/grading, farm automation and forward linkages to ensure viability of farm.
Marketing
Marketing of farm produce - raw or processed has been a key challenge . As customers are typically in cities , key aspects like demand planning, packaging, branding are often key aspects to plan prior to even starting manufacture.
We advice farmers, NGOs/SHGs on the basics of sales and marketing techniques, price fixation, contracts etc., with key focus on perishables.
Sourcing of Farm Produce
Industries and businesses based on steady supply of farm produce are often impacted by erratic fluctuations in supply, pricing and quality. As most of India's agri supply chain is still mandi driven , 'backward linkage' has been a key challenge for even corporate buyers. Also, with increasing global focus on traceability of the produce to track down potential food based epidemics , it is vital to have better planned approach to sourcing.
A well planned supply chain is very essential for a successful agro-based industry.eFarm assists buyers in identifying potential supply regions, target farmers , arrive at cost of procurement , simulate 'what if' scenarios in the supply chain to identify potential failures prior to happening .
IT implementations in Agriculture / Food Industry / Retail
One of the key reasons why other manufacturing and service industries have performed better is their IT adoption across the enterprise. Whereas in agriculture there is very little usage of IT, hence there is very little data or accurate information about farmers supply or consumer's demand . The supply chain also is planned in very adhoc manner, and is left to human errors in judgement.
Key reasons being that the primary user base is predominantly less educated/aged and has not shown interests in adopting technology. The IT companies also have traditionally preferred to deal with single large customer rather than group of smaller customers.
eFarm has been building very simple IT tools , which are mobile based and are easy for even illiterate users to learn. The backend platforms are based on modern internet technologies which run on SAAS/Cloud and shared across multiple users - reducing the costs and improving ROI.eFarm assists end users in deploying these tools to manage their agri businesses and also tie in to our eFarmDirect trading platform.