 It says Anupam, are you Anupriya? No, I am Anupam actually, Anupriya is not well. Okay, sorry, sorry. Sanchit, you and Mudita will be speaking, right? Yeah. Alright, looking forward to it. I just want to tell you what I do and what my interest in this conversation is. I am from Pune. I am part of the push starter group where I saw this. And we manufacture synthetic free condiments. So fruit spreads, what is typically known as jams. In our country, unfortunately what they sell is classified as jelly anywhere else in the world. But somehow we call it jams. So we don't call our product jam, we call it a fruit spread. And it's used without using absolutely any synthetics. We try to source organic fruits for our jams. Unfortunately, we couldn't find organic fruits from anywhere. And the organic people who claim that they were doing organic stuff were found to be kind of, I don't know, dubious. It was difficult to believe even though they had all the certificates and everything. So A, we don't know why one should go organic. B, we don't know how to spot somebody who is doing real organic stuff. And C, how do you get them to a scale in terms of cost that becomes economical? We are a small company and I'm sure a lot of us here are running small companies. And I really can't afford to pay double the price of fruit just because it's organic because my customers don't care. So that's why I'm here to hear all of it. Thank you very much. I'm going to mute myself because I don't want to take your time. No problem, Kedar. And I would like, we are live guys and I am recording the session. And we'll definitely answering all those questions. Like our speakers are there to answer all those questions for sure. So let me get started with this. So hi, beautiful people. Hope you all are doing amazing and keeping safe. The time is tough. I know. So please take care. And yes, welcome to this event, which is all about the secrets behind organics. It is vitally important that we can continue to say that organic farming delivers the highest quality, best tasting food produced without artificial chemicals or genetic modifications. And with respect for animal welfare and the environment. So while helping to maintain the landscape and rural communities too. So yes, far from being a luxury for the rich, organic farming may turn out to be a necessity, not just for the poor, but for everyone out there. Moving on with this, we have two people, two amazing people with us who are into organic farming. We have Mudita Vidrohi, owner of Vikalp Organics and Sanjit Agrawal, founder of Acom Farms. Both of them are among the best peacemakers today because there is more violence, more death, more destruction, more wars through a violent industrial agricultural system. And to shift away from that into an agriculture of peace is what organic farming and Sanjit and Mudita are doing. So hats off to you guys and thank you Sanjit and Mudita for joining in. Thank you so much for your time. So yes, let's get started with your drowning into kombucha moment. So with this, I would like to again throw out a few questions on you. And I would definitely request the audience, if you have any questions, any queries, any views, please do shoot out your queries, your questions in the chat section. If you want to speak, raise your hands. I'll let you speak. I'll unmute you and you can, you're free to speak. So yes, drowning in kombucha as the name suggests as the title goes, it means what's that one thing which attracts you to use organic. In this case, example, the name kombucha will attract someone to try it, right? Drowning into kombucha. What is kombucha? So by the way, kombucha is an organic tea. So what is your, I want organic moment. I would like to know about this. So Sanjit, would you like to take it fast? I think like, you know, it started way back in 2015 with me when I was, you know, searching for real authentic vegetables, because I think like, you know, most of the vegetable in Delhi NCR are being cultivated in Yamuna region. And Yamuna is a drain now. It's not a river anymore. And with that thought, I searched for organic at that time. And I was shocked that, you know, even, even a potato was costing around 150, 160. And that was like, okay, it's huge. It should not be the case like that. And we went into, you know, searching for the reason for it. We interacted with a lot of farmers, we interacted with a lot of consumers. What is the gap? You know, something which is making people to, or farmers to, you know, not to grow with good practices. And that's how we started. And I would say that was the initial start, which happened. And then, you know, all the way last five years, we have been working and understanding the entire organic chain. I went for a diploma in organic farming, though I am a data scientist by profession, but it completely now I'm moving towards and learning more and more, you know, how the system works in some agree and agree related, you know, issues. Wow, that's amazing. That's great to know actually, because again, we have to start from something. So, yeah, what was your drowning in into kombucha moment? And what do you think makes people believe in organic? Well, because started back in 1992, so because he's one of the very first ones in India to start organic outlets. Actually, it was started by my mom and I was eight. So we have seen that transition of three records, how people, you know, move from the word organic to now I'm knowing and slowly transiting towards that direction. The journey has been very interesting. And I can definitely say that the awareness has increased. There are more people now who want to switch to organic. But still, that is not the, you know, the required force or the wanting to go towards organic is it isn't the way we have. And now not just us but now there are so many people who are, you know, opening up with new farming methods in organic farming. So many other outlets wanting to set organic stuff and things like that. But not everybody is still convinced enough to switch to organic and not the demand has not increased in the way that it should have. So I think that, you know, it's like because it's a direct indirect benefit that's what people feel or it's a benefit in long term. So usually what people think about or look for is something that they can see is immediate benefit to themselves. So what is immediate benefit, what is cheap, what is things like that or what is immediately or easily available in the neighborhood and things like that. So it's a tough road, but it's moving. Yeah, it is it is moving actually. So again, what do you think because you both are into organic farming you both are connected with these organic culture organic practices. So there are some myths and realities when it comes to organic farming or using organic products. Sanjit, please, please go ahead. Well, if I talk about the myths, the real myth is like, you know, organic is costly. And, you know, it's out of our budget. The second myth I would say, you know, it's all fake, you know, and you know, it's just, you know, it's a matter of making more money. And you use organic certification for that purpose. And there are very, very other myths which are related. Like, you know, if I talk about whether the practice is like, you know, sometimes people say, okay, do you is the is the certification is actually worth it. Right. So I would say there are many myths and one of the top most myths is that if you go organic, it is costly. And exactly that is the equation which we are changing through income found where we believe to make organic farming affordable for both farmers as well as consumers. And I hope like, you know, Mudita can add on, you know, the other myths because I think she has been working in this from last 20 years. So, Mudita. We are very rarely like rightly pointed out two things one about organic being costly. Well, it definitely is a bit costlier than the regular thing that you get in the market but this is the entire mindset that we have to change. There are two things. One thing is certainly when you grow organic food, it has more cost in farming. That is one thing. Two, there is smaller yield. So, for example, in one acre, you grow wheat in the regular way, the yield would definitely be almost, you know, half the, I mean double the what you get in the organic farm. That is one thing. Two, the farmers are always in pain. The farmers are always in tears. So what happens in the regular market for a farmer's market that a farmer cannot decide his price. If I am a farmer, I grow channa and I know that the price of my channa or the price of my tomato or the price of my oranges is so and so. But I don't have the right. Farmer is the only producer who cannot decide the price of his or her own produce. The market decides. The government decides the minimum support price etc. etc. And then even then there are so many other costs. So when you buy tomatoes in market 10 rupees per kg, you know that the farmer is paying for you. Not that the tomato is cheap, but you are getting it cheap because someone else is paying for you. So a farmer who grows organic food decides his own price also. So when you pay to the organic farmer, he calculates that this is this much of land I have, this much of water I use for irrigation, this much of electricity required. This was the cost of organic fertilizer and organic and natural pesticide, whichever they prepare and use and this was the labour cost etc. etc. So this comes to this price and we at least set because never bargain with a farmer. Because we feel that why always a farmer should sacrifice his life and his comfort for giving you the cheap food. Because everywhere else if you want to go and buy a television you pay the full price to the company. You go and buy anything you pay the full price to everybody. But the place in which you eat three times a day you don't want to pay fair price to your farmer. So it is costly is one thing but it is also the fair price that you are paying to your farmer. I mean at least at vehicle we follow that. I don't know what other big companies who run like very big business in organic and have big brands across like Pan India. I don't know what is their model and how do they deal with the organic farmers across India. But when vehicle directly procures from the farmers, so we make sure that our farmer are paid a fair price for what he or she grows. So when you are paying at organic store or specifically to vehicle you are not only getting naturally grown organic food but you are also not entering into that cycle of or a structure where you are continuously exploiting nature and development and the farm labour. On top of it, even sometimes we feel that the local market is 10 rupees, the potato is 10 rupees and it is cheaper and the organic is costly. But if you see the other way, when we eat local products which are being cultivated using urea, NPK and artificial chemicals we are actually giving a slow poison in our body and this will go into bio magnification. It will actually result in a lot of diseases which you are not aware of. Even a regular problem like gastritis or diarrhea or sometimes having a high VP. These days you can see even children are having diabetes. All these are the results of what you consume. And certainly you are paying the cost for it, not at the time of buying the vegetables but at the time of actually getting medications for the problems you are having. These days many people are having thyroid, they are having many other related diseases. So it's not that it is costly, it's the only thing is as said by Munita that you are actually not paying what a farmer should get. I can share a difference between the two scenarios. Let's say I am doing non-organic, I am doing chemical based farming. In a 1 acre land, if I talk about potato, I can get up to 7000, 8000 up to production in 1 acre. And my cost of labour is very low because I don't require labour. I just have to spray pesticides. Again I don't require a costly solution like dashpani and other things which are being prepared for the organic farming. It doesn't require constant monitoring because now you are spraying pesticides, no pest will come to your cultivation. Your seeds are being subsidised by government, again there is no problem on that. Now imagine somebody who is doing natural farming or organic farming. It's way, way harder why you need to create a regular monitoring schedule. You need to create so many solutions, there are more than 10-15 solutions which need to be sprayed in order to maintain an ecosystem so that your vegetable or your cultivation doesn't hit with the pest or doesn't hit with some insects. You need a regular fertilisation of your field and now this fertilisation is being done using cow dung. Now preparation of these solutions require manual labour which is an added cost to the farmer. When you spray all these sprays, again you require a huge labour. The beading is now required because you are not spraying any beady sites. Now you have to do manual beading of your fields. All these are very added cost. On top of it, since you are producing natural, they have a very, very, I would say they are very delicate. They are not resistant to things so you need a market for it. Farmers need a market for it. Again that is a cost to him. Now you are not actually paying, it's not costly. Now imagine 1 acre versus 8000 and when you are doing organic it is like 1 acre just 4000 even less than that. Plus your input cost increases. Here your input cost is 10 rupees. Here your input cost is 20 rupees. Now everybody in the market wants good stuff but they don't want to pay for it. As said by Mudita, if I want to go for a mobile, I will buy the highest and the newest version of the mobile and would be ready to pay 50,000 rupees for that which is just costing maybe 15,000, 20,000 in production. But you are not ready to pay 40 rupees for a potato because you think that it is 20 rupees in the market and you don't know that you are actually paying medications on top of it. So there are many, many things which I would say awareness has to be bring that it is not costly. It is the value you are paying to the farmer. Exactly. I definitely second with what you both have been telling me. So yes, prices of organic foods include not only the cost of the food production itself but also a range of other factors which we just discussed and these factors are actually not captured in the price of conventional food. That's why we think these things are expensive and these things are not expensive. So yeah, great, great to have a discussion on this too. So I would now like to know, like I would request both of you if you can tell us about a particular organic product that your organization, Acom Farms and Vikal Organics is currently involved into or if you want to give a gist of what your niche is, you can share slides too if you want or you can share samples or anything. So please go ahead, Sanjeev. Anupam, just allow me to share my screen then. Just a minute, done. So everyone, I think like, you know, at Acom Farms, we tried doing some, you know, different things. I would say a farming with a difference. So have you guys heard of yellow watermelons? I would ask the audience to at least reply. Or have you ever tasted yellow watermelons? They are responding in the chat section. Oh, they are responding. Never, never, never only Himanshu. Himanshu said yes, oh my God. Oh my God. Great, great, great. So we know that, you know, watermelons, they are... So Himanshu is selling seeds of it. Okay, great Himanshu. Yeah, please Sanjeev, go ahead. So watermelons are often accused of, you know, adulteration. That, you know, we are scared of having watermelons in Delhi. Now, many people are scared because, you know, when I eat them, I get allergies. And you know, there's some, you know, different kind of feeling when you eat a watermelon, which is there in the local market. So at Acom, we observed that. And we thought, okay, what new we can do? We studied different varieties of watermelon and we decided that, okay, we'll go for four varieties. More than 50 plus varieties of watermelon. We selected four varieties. I will talk about those varieties and I would also talk about the kind of practices which we do at the farms, like, you know, doing mulching. Because my farmers were not doing mulching and we introduced mulching to them to grow the watermelon so that we, you know, reduce the level of water which is, you know, used and even, you know, the impact on the fruit. At the same time, we prepare many, many solutions. Like neemers, we prepare decomposers, we prepare nutrients, we prepare bhangak, carbonic, I would say, solution and then we created Jeevaam Reddash Purni solution. All these solutions were there so that we have a regular spray on the fruit and the fruit gets a very tender and juicy, you know, flavor. We had our own dirkau which is also a CMO of our company. It's like a chief marketing officer for us and chief manuring officer for us and we use the manure of our body for all the solutions which we prepare. You can see on the left, on the right, you know, the kind of water we are using, the kind of solution we prepare and the mulching techniques and other things. So the idea was to bring the difference in the watermelon which is, you know, being circulated in Delhi and to have a different flavor. I would talk about the Jeevaam Reddash Purni solution where we prepare this solution using 10 different leaves. Here's a small example of how you can prepare these leaves. Now this particular solution is very good for insects which are juice sucking and in watermelon it is very much required because watermelon is full of juice. You will not imagine that, you know, we currently are doing regular sprays of Dash Purni on our watermelons and that's how we bring that juicy and, you know, I would say a flavor in our watermelon by avoiding the impact of our insects and it's all natural. You can easily prepare these solutions using leaves like Karanjaka, Sturdney, Ginger, Garlic and other things. So the idea was to try different watermelons and now these are the images of different watermelons. You can see yellow watermelons. One is yellow outside and red inside. The other one is yellow inside and green outside. I have a demo for that. So here it is, right? Can you see this on the... So this is one of the watermelon which I have. I will have a quiz after this round after I finish my presentation and I will ask you what type of watermelon it is. So we had four varieties. We had Arovi which is green inside, green outside and yellow inside. You can see the images of that. Then we have Saraswati. Now this one is very, very juicy and not a regular red one. It's more of like a... I would say the texture is very, very granular in nature and when it's red inside, green outside. Then we have Anmol. The best thing about this is it has very low seeds. You can't see seeds in this. It's round shape again. Green outside, yellow inside. And then we had Vishala. Now the good thing about Vishala is it's actually in elliptical nature. It's a Vishalan. Then again it is red inside, yellow outside. All the four melons have a really good texture. You can see how these are being grown on our mulching bed. So I would say if anyone can identify all these melons, we have all the four on the images. This is what is currently on the field and we are the farmers and all the team is actually taking care of. These are certain feedbacks which we received from our customers. They were saying the products were very tasty and they enjoyed. It's more juicy. It's more tender in nature. It's like it's motivating us that we are on the right track. Many people are saying that though they are a bit high priced, I would say local market, you can get a watermelon at 30 or 40 rupees. I'm selling it at 50-55 rupees. But it is worth trying because I would say it is reduced. When you say you want to have a healthy juice, it should be healthy fruit from which you prepare a healthy juice. It should not be a local chemical nourished fruit. These are certain feedback which we got. Not only watermelon, we are doing red bindi, lalima bindi. Again, I can talk about it in maybe another conversation. But lalima bindi is again what we are trying and there are similar many other products which we are trying. You can call me or you can visit my website if you want some of them. This is what we are doing. Anupam. That's great. There is a question for you in the chat section. Yeah. Why you are not using vermicast manure? We do have. We do have. We have all the different kinds of manuree. We have vermicast, we have cow dung based manure, we have Jeevaam rate, we have Ghan Jeevaam rate. All these are routine and they are routinely used on the fields. There is a schedule for all these things. I have talked about particularly Deshparni because that was one of the key solutions which is required for a juicy fruit. I talked about it because it is a natural insecticide or pesticide you can say. We have almost 15 plus different solutions and different manures which we use in our fields. All prepared for our own cow. We have our own cow at our fields and everything is done at the local level. Thank you. Thank you, Sanjit for this presentation. Guys, do try it because even I also got to know about this yellow watermelon from Sanjit only. I didn't know about it earlier. Thank you Sanjit for letting me know that yellow watermelon exists. Here is a sample for this. This is the real sample. Tricky. Can you identify this one? After the presentation can you identify this one? Which one is this? I want answers on the chat. Guys, go ahead because I know. Is this a yellow one or a red one? Yellow. And the name? Anmol. Even I don't remember. This is ROV. Anmol. People are saying Anmol. Can you identify this one? What is this? Nisha guessed it right. ROV. That is ROV. Which one is this? Vishala. Great. Wow. That's great. That's great. Now we know a few more things about our nature. Oh my God. Great. So yeah. Coming back to what we are discussing. So Madhita, please go ahead and tell us more about what Vickers Organics is doing and what's your niche. And yeah, if you want to share slides go ahead otherwise you can speak. Yeah. So basically what is happening that people think that organic store means selling all very fancy and exotic fruits and vegetables. If you are selling for example something which does not grow in your area and which comes to you from 10 like 1000 kilometers of 80s very nice. It is organic. What we are trying to change in the mindset of the people here in Andhra Badhand in Ujjat is that see what you eat every day. Your roti, sabji, dal, chawal, achar, salt, your good. These things have to be organic first of all. If you don't, I mean if you eat pasta once in a while if your pizza once in a while is not organic it is okay. But your roti and chawal two times cannot be not organ. So that is what we are trying to change. Your dal cannot be not organic. Your spices, your oil cannot be not organ. So what we are trying to do and we have I can say that being all I can say that have we have been successful in providing almost all the basic ingredients for your kitchen that when you cook you can eat a complete organic meal. So in because you can get like so many number of pulses and legumes most variety of grains you get four or five times of cold pressed cooking oils you get floor you get all the basic things required in the kitchen with all the different variety. Then you will say to first of all we completed the first round which is like your basic staples then we decided oh what about the pickle your roti sabji is also organic now what about your pickle so then we moved on to things like that so we started making organic papad from organic odour organic pickle from organic mango and organic methi and organic cold pressed oil and then organic wheat sabji it's one kind of a thing delicacy here in Uduk so you will get all your basic staples right from like for example in rice also we have 10 different varieties in channa we have some four or five kinds of different channa variety and some of them are so rare that most I mean you don't get anywhere else there are farmers who have been doing organic farming for more than like you know two decades three decades and they have developed some varieties or they have somewhere from somewhere they have collected those seeds and then they cultivated them on their farm so those are some of the very rare varieties of channa there is something called chauri we call it in Gujarati in English they call it kaupi and things like I don't know we call it chauri it's a long grain this thing it's a legume so that also we have of a very different variety so basically if you come to vikalp or if you buy from vikalp there is nothing that is left that while you are cooking or preparing your meal there is no ingredients which is not organic so that has been our effort and I think we are quite successful in providing almost everything that you need during your cooking everyday for your everyday cooking exactly we are we are observing your work and you're doing quite good but I have a quick question here Mudita how do you named it vikalp is there any story behind it yes so actually we started this on the varanda of our house and we did not name it anything the first product we started was jaggery because in Gujarati food jaggery is very important in everything you cook in your dal in your sabji you put jaggery and we realized that jaggery which was available in market back then like 20 years ago 30 years ago was always a white jaggery now when you eat white jaggery it is of course not organic but besides that it is also full of so many different kind of chemicals which are never good for your body so some friends of my parents they decided that we should so they were all doing other activities and social work they decided to give 2 months in a year in trying to make completely natural jaggery without adding any chemical to it so jaggery was invented in early 90s and the first product we launched was jaggery and then slowly slowly we started adding other organic things that time we did not name it anything but then we felt that what is this what should we call this so we thought this is an alternative this is an alternative to what you regularly get in the market so when someone tells you what you are getting in market people will tell you yeah we know it's not good it's humming our body it's not good for health but where is an alternative where should we go now you can say there are you know in every area you have an organic store but 30 years that was not the story so we said we have the alternative we will give you the alternative so the word vikal means alternative alternative yeah that's great wow every brand has a story every brand has a different story and I love stories so vikal alternative glad to know that thank you modeta for sharing all this and guys again I would like you to connect the and vikal organics they are doing way good please do connect with her services and what she is providing at vikal organics and yes you can drop your mail id or contact details too if you want to if you wish to connect with her so great now sorry no issues no issues so as just talked about her vikal organics now my moving on to the next question I would like to ask you like you are into agri-based business right agri-based services you are providing this so what do you think are the strategies which early stage agri-based startups should follow to scale up their services specifically in India I am talking about Indian startups and in India the location purposely in India only so what do you think guys Sanchit please go ahead Anupam can you repeat the question I am sorry no issues so I was asking basically there are early stage agri-based startups out there people are going into agriculture so what do you think are the strategies, formulas which early stage entrepreneurs early stage agri-based startups should follow to scale up their services whatever they are providing specifically in India so I think like Anupam one thing is there for sure that agri-based startup has to go with various challenges and if they are not clear about what is their niche then it will be difficult for them to scale so I would say it is very important to get clarity on your niche that for example Mudita said that when they were talking about Vikal what is the Vikal for you apart from your regular stuff and can you buy Chennai and everything so they are very clear about that they are doing non-perishables mostly non-perishables I heard from Mudita can you be very clear about whether you want to be influenced or you want to do non-perishable but you want to do everything again with any organic farmer or organic company there are two things one is they do farming and they do farming for some set of products you can't do all the products it's difficult second thing how to market it are you doing B2B are you doing B2C again be clear on that when you do B2C the strategy the strategy is completely different and are you more of an aggregator at the farmer side or are you a farmer yourself you want to be more of a corporate farmer you need to be there are many various stages of farming and the entire supply chain you need to be very clear which particular part you want to play a role in do you want to be a marketer because again marketing is a challenging thing if I talk about the even scenarios for organic farming are you a provider or are you an exporter or you just want to do in Indian economy do you want to sell it on the Indian side the norms are a bit different when you go for export again there are certification, regulation compliance you have to deal with you have to be very clear on that if you are doing just India then again you are doing so for example if I talk about ACUM at ACUM we are very clear that if we want to do vegetables it will be local vegetables just near Delhi NCR as of now I am in Delhi NCR I am not marketing in any other states or any other cities it's just Delhi NCR which is the focus and even when I started it was not Delhi NCR it was a very small community in Delhi NCR one particular region or one particular apartment in Delhi NCR and that was very clear we will just serve these 50 people once we are clear, once we are sorted that we can serve all them then we will go to the next level when I started I just started with 10 vegetables it was very clear why I selected vegetables because many people were doing organic for non-perishables you can find plethora of products, plethora of companies doing organic for non-perishables but when it comes to vegetables it's really really tough so we decided we will go for with vegetables we decided that it will be B2C it will not be B2B buy again when I say B2B it's a different game altogether so we decided for B2C this is the land which we will be taking we took a very small land at that time and we started it we started with just 10 vegetables many people many consumers asked us to find 10 vegetables we have to go outside for other vegetables fine, it's a problem but these are the 10 vegetables which I assure will be high quality I don't mix up that vegetables with any other vegetables in the market I don't procure from Mondays there are many many start-ups who are saying that we are doing all organics and what they do is they do 2 or 3 products as organic and buy other products from the local farmers or the local Mondays we were very clear on that and I would say for any start-up who want to do that has to be very clear on the product lines if you want to do oils you do oils only start with one oil keep adding on oils if you want to go for fragrance again you can do that level of things you can do for cereals you can do for millets there are so many things you can do that is on the agriculture side again if you say I don't want to all these challenges of agriculture I just want to provide marketing support for them do that because farmers require marketing if they do farming they can't do marketing if you are saying I will just supply things like organic inputs which are required for farmers for example if I talk about I prepare almost like I would say almost 6-10 drums of Jeeva Amrit every month right which requires a lot of manure for me right now you can be a provider of manures there is one guy who is doing vermicast he just do vermicast and he supplies to all the farmers who are doing that so there are many entry points which you can go about you can also think about technology you can provide technology sensors so that we can maintain sprinklers and other we can monitor all those things hydroponics are coming up so there are many ways which you can enter it but be very clear about your entry point it should not be all it should be one or two it should be a niche I would say that is one thing and that will be easily scalable for any startup after that you can keep adding products you can keep doing that's how we did that also we started with 10 vegetables we are doing almost 50 plus vegetables today we are planning for almost 10 plus fruits we have watermelons, we have musk melons, we will be doing mangoes we will be doing leeches we have papaya, we will be doing bananas so we selected a niche for Delhi NCR market and it is like what we will be doing in coming days that's great so in all you have to choose your niche you have to start with small again do not think of becoming a unicorn at a very early stage so yeah you have to act like a cockroach be a survivor first I can say okay so yeah Mudita please go ahead Mudita are you there Sanjitha I hope I am audible I think Mudita I think drop that we rejoin one second one second no issues yeah please go ahead we are waiting for your views on how how these early stage agri-based startups what are the formula they can follow to scale up their services yeah so if they are doing agriculture and trying to expand it to the next level I think Sanjitha has already elaborated enough if you want to become a person or form doing marketing of it or if you want to become a chain of doing organic or organic food store something like that then you have to first of all check the requirement in the market and if you want to do it online there are different strategies required if you want to do it locally or by opening a physical store then there are different kind of challenges and requirements from deciding the kind of area which will serve best to this kind of startup to you know spreading the word about how how you are doing it and how you can reach out to the people and how authenticity is one thing which is very much important in any kind of agri-based and if you are especially if you are agri-based is one thing but if you are doing organic authenticity is one thing everybody comes to you and so for us though we are very like you know one of the first ones in Gujarat people still come and ask us why shouldn't we trust you you know the first question the moment they enter you enter a regular grocery store and you buy everything like then with all kinds of chemicals and these and that and everything you never ask the question but the moment you enter an organic store the mindset is that you have to suspect, suspect, suspect and suspect and you have to see everything with great doubts I wish people were doing this with everywhere everywhere in the other country would have been much better but the moment you enter the organic store you just have to be like you know they are cheaters all of them are cheaters so this thing about the authenticity it also comes with the time so as you go on with your business and people keep coming to your store they start using your product they realize see now for example vehicle brand SS does not have any organic certification we buy from the farmers many of them are certified farmers many of them are not but we know them for years now that they have been dedicated doing organic farming and we directly buy from them without having any organic certification sometimes there are things that we don't have for example moomki dal we don't have for sometime because our farmer doesn't have it so what should a store do customer would come every day for moomki dal is something very basic that everyone needs if you don't have it what a store should do so what we do we procure from company which is a certified usb a xyz certified organic company we will get some 25 packets of dal for some days till we get the next batch of dal from our farmer but our experience has been that even though the dal of a certified organic company or agency with all the certified certificates printed on it with all the fancy labels and all the fancy packaging and everything people don't want to buy because people have tasted what vikal gives to them in a very basic kind of in a very simple packaging with just a very normal sticker that provides the minimum required information on it and things like that so that comes from time and when you have to know you have to learn the nature of people like you know what it is that people actually want from you and how you can provide exactly it is and at the same time if it is an easy base product you also have to educate people because an average Indian who lives in a city does not have any connection with rural areas or with agriculture or land or nature they'll know very less about agriculture and therefore you know for example if you want to buy a microwave you will read a lot about it what is a microwave, what if I buy Samsung, what if I buy LG what features they see what you won't do the same thing for some agree based product and at the same time the level of knowledge you have the microwave and the level of knowledge you have for that agricultural product is same you don't know anything about both of it but you are going to read a lot about your electronic product but you are not going to read about your agree based product so you being a person doing a business in agree based product will have to educate people that if this is like this why we like that for example we also do fruits and vegetables both but yes we don't do it every day we do it on weekly basis so recently one of my customers asked me even today now the temperature has now gone very high we still have makey leaves and one of like just I said that customers keep doubting you so one of my customers asked me oh makey leaves in 43 degree temperature organic really was the message that I received and I straight away gave the mobile number of my farmer and I told her talk to him we don't hide our sources and things like that then my farmer explained to her that the area in which they grow the temperature they are it is very close to the post the temperature there is not less I mean not higher than 30 to 33 degree the moisture in the soil is quite high and all those kind of climatic situation these and that allow them to grow maybe even right now does not mean that it cannot be because you live in and you are experiencing a different kind of climatic condition it cannot it would be same everywhere in Gujarat and it cannot be cultivated so these are the kind of things and especially if you are in retail as said if you are doing B2C it is a very tough thing you have to everyday deal with people and every person is different every person's level of understanding is different every person's expectation is different and especially when it is organic they have hundreds of kind of questions so you will have to clarify your own idea about what is organic what is agri-based business whatever you are into what you want to start with so it makes a great difference when you are educated enough about what you are doing if you are aware enough about what you are doing and with that confidence if you can explain to your customer that what is this and why this is like that then it brings a lot of strength in the customer also otherwise you know especially when if you want to expand and want to launch chain and so many stores under the same brand then you will have to have very trained people who can also deliver the same way otherwise normally what happens you go to an organic chain and you will have an employee who is just like any other place and does not know enough for example I went to one of the very not reputed but like a very sort of famous organic store in Ahmedabad and there was wheat floor display so I asked the person the store in charge which wheat floor is this like which wheat is used because there are so many varieties of wheat so there was a girl she told me it is wheat floor and then she told I said yeah that's too but which wheat you use for this floor she said yeah just the normal so she did not even know the variety of wheat that they use for making this floor so these are the kind of things and then you know every business has its own nature and requirement so day by day every day you learn and go ahead with it definitely and I definitely like hats off to both of you that you deal with such questions and yeah and you definitely answer these questions and you deal with such people so hats off to you whatever you're doing that's amazing actually because I know I agree base startups the struggle that that basically the struggle is high no doubt so yeah like it's 5.52 I would request our audience if they have any questions please shoot it out in the chat section if you want to speak if you want to share your views regarding anything please raise your hands I'll unmute you and you are free to speak meanwhile like I would also again a quick question here because we are running out of time so a quick question here would be what do you think how agree based startups can empower others in times of covid so please keep your answers very quick because we are running out of time so please go ahead Mudita if you would like to take it first how agree based startups can empower others other startups other people in times of covid what is one thing so corona has started one thing that you can be without everything else but you can't be without food one thing so every agree based startup has to deal with your food mostly I mean apart from clothes and other things mostly it is about food so it is one thing that people cannot be without so all other businesses are affected but groceries are not kind of affected so that's one thing that you are you can rest assured about so if you are doing a serious agree based business you are also empowering farmers which is the need of the hour like thousands and lakhs of people are protesting even today for their rights so farmers is one thing if they are not farming they are not going to survive you can survive without everything else but not food so you are supporting farmers third thing your health so this the time of pandemic in last one or one and a half years taught us that everything else comes after your health so when you are doing agree based startup and if you are providing good thing to people you are also improving their health and that is something that makes you live a good life and that will allow you to do everything else that you want to do exactly thank you so much Madhura Sanjith please go ahead I think as Bhuttha rightly said that one thing which we all are dependent is food which is very crucial and I think after corona we should realize that even having good food is even more necessary because to have a immunity you need good food you can't fight diseases like corona if you don't have a good immunity so I would say for any startup I think you should think over that how you can boost by growing good stuff how you can help people to have a good immunity and they can have good stuff that is one thing the other thing I would say is if you want to cater to families you need all the range of products and now a single farmer can't do it that means different startups can come in collaboration and they can support each other sometimes what happens is if I grow melons I have surplus of melons they can procure from me they might have surplus of moondal they can have surplus of something else that's how the interaction can happen at a startup level and they can grow their business together and they can actually help providing in all the regions providing the entire range of products so that is the other thing which I agree startups should think about particularly the third thing is many people are now moving towards agriculture and they want to start such startups so I would say for the mature startup it is necessary to give trainings to these people so that they can start right and they don't repeat the mistakes which we have done so it would be good if we have a platform where all these people can join us and it's actually promoting farming, promoting the farmers actually changing the lifestyle of the farmers don't think farmer as just a Kisan because he is also entrepreneur right so it is required that more and more people come in and they are the matured people like Vikal and others they can come and give the helping hand to support these startups so that they start right so I would say this is how we can support each other exactly so yeah that was indeed an amazing conversation guys thank you so much and dear audience if you have any queries any suggestions any questions please drop it in the chat section so yes in all with wrong farming methods we turn fertile land into desert unless we go back to organic farming and save the soil there is no future no doubt so let's make it the lifestyle and not a duty as per Sanjita and Mudita sorry Sanjita and Mudita said I am really very sorry so again we will definitely try to make it a lifestyle and not just a duty so thank you Sanjita and thank you Mudita for making it interactive and full of wisdom yeah so to all the viewers we keep on organizing such events please get connected with us on social media platforms for regular updates and I would request Mudita and Sanjita if you too can also drop out your mail IDs or your contact details in the chat section because there are people who haven't registered but they are here so it would be great it would be feasible for them to connect with you and yes if any if any one of you from the audience would like to share anything or as I can see that Himancho I guess you are also from the same background I guess because of whatever you just discussed in the chat section you are into selling seeds and all so if you want to share something Himancho are you there Manchu Anand yep I just started them would you like to share something about it Yes Himancho I have only one motive I want to start I am also looking for a start-up in agriculture so that's why I joined this session I have a project type of farming so I am exploring the ways how I can do it I have already made the project but the difficulty I have is the land to start with Himancho I think you let's connect I don't have a problem of land with me I have a good land pool let's understand your project and let's see whether we can go ahead with it I have shared my number I think you have also shared your number let's connect what happened let's see what we can do after this meeting I can call you tomorrow what? after this meeting I will call you tomorrow yes definitely can I call you now or later yes you can call me after this meeting you can call me tomorrow but Sanjit I like your idea that all of you are connected with agriculture since the last year I have a lot of issues there are multiple startups but no one is collaborating yes there is a lot of issues okay I think that's what platform like this and Ruksh is helping us to collaborate with like-minded people and the like-minded organizations I think we should be grateful to Ruksh for providing such a platform definitely thank you so much Sanjit thank you so much Imanshu and I hope Mudita and Sintu please drop your contact details in the chat section I can't see anything in the chat section though I don't know if that's a problem okay Mudita if you are comfortable you can also share your contact details please go ahead guys meanwhile we keep on organizing such events with startups and with startup founders please do connect with us do connect with us on our social media platforms let's see how we can connect and collaborate and do something much better for the world so that we can also make this world a better place to live in and yes so thank you guys thank you for joining in so I am stopping this live also thank you guys thank you so much bye bye