 An innovator named Kaushik Bose has found a solution to tackle the problem of crop losses due to pests in our agricultural fields. This unique product called as crop defender not just protects crops from insects and fungal infections but also increases crop productivity by 30 to 50 percent. Welcome to another edition of Changemakers. Effective pest control for farmers is essential. Pest attacks on crops are a major concern for farmers as they result in revenue loss due to crop damage. Although there are chemical pesticides available for preventing pest attacks, their repeated use has a long term negative impact on the environment. Biopesticides are also an option but they are not widely popular because of their high cost and limited efficacy. Kaushik Bose and his team has devised a method to convert waste weeds into a product that can protect crops from pests, insects and fungal infections while also increasing crop productivity. Let us get to know more about this innovation from Kaushik himself. Welcome to the show Kaushik. Hello ma'am, thank you for having me on the show. I am looking forward to interact with you more. Please introduce yourself Kaushik. Yes ma'am. So, I have done my B.Tech in biotechnology, I am from Dhanbat, Jharkhand. I have done my B.Tech in biotechnology from G.I.E.T., University, Odisha, Gunapur and then I did my MBA in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Venture Development from Gujarat Technological University in Namdabad. For my MBA in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, I was also awarded gold medal as I was the University Topper. And along with that, I have received two prestigious fellowship as well. I have been a Nidhi EIR Fellow which is from the Department of Science and Technology and I have been an Indian Agri-Tech Innovation Network Fellow from Gates Foundation. So, that is my, it is really inspiring profile you have Kaushik. Can you explain in more detail how your innovation converts waste weeds into a product that can protect crops from pests, insects and fungal infections? Yes. So, we started with a problem basically. Our problem identification was that India loses around 50,000 crores of crops worth annually due to pest attack and in a country where 200 million people go to bed hungry every night, this data was an eye-opener. And in order to solve this problem there were existing solutions such as development of pest resistant crop with the help of biotechnology, but that was like a distant dream to us. Then there was chemical-based agriculture product, but repeated uses of chemical-based agriculture product was causing detrimental effect on the environment. And then there was organic or biological-based agriculture product, but due to their high cost and poor efficacy, it was not been able to solve the problem at hand. So, we identified a locally growing weed, a weed of zero economic value, a weed that goes through the year and is currently the most invasive weed species. Around 35 million hectares of agricultural land is covered by this weed and it is going at an alarming rate. Our government and farmers spend a huge sum of money on eradication of this weed because we still haven't found an efficient use of this weed. The only way to solve this weed-based problem is eradicated, get rid of the weeds. So, we found that there is an abundant natural resources present in our environment, but we are not able to utilize it. And our idea was to convert this abundant natural resources for the benefit of farmer. So, what we did was we identified this weed and we extracted phytochemicals out of this weed. Phytochemicals are the chemicals which are present in plant bodies, that is what we call phytochemicals. Now, using this phytochemical, we analyzed them and found that this phytochemical is having anti-fungal, anti-bacterial properties which can be used to protect crops from pest and fungal infection. And we also conducted a before and after study of soil before applying a product and after applying a product in terms of what is the micronutrients that has been added after application of the product, what is the change of soil pH and what is the change in soil electrical conductivity. After analyzing and doing all these things, we found that our product not just will protect crops from any kind of infection, but will also increase crop productivity by adding considerable amount of micronutrients along with NPK, other micronutrients such as iron, copper and other micro zinc, as well as if you will maintain the soil pH and bring it to the range between 5 to 7 as well as if you bring the electrical conductivity of the soil between 0 to 3 micro siemens per centimeter. All of these factors are important to enhance crop growth as well as the ability to protect crops from and fungal infection and pest infection ensures that immunity of the crops are increasing. Therefore, we were able to find the product and extract that can work as a protection kind of crop stimulant. Now, in order to develop the product out of that extract, we mixed it with multiple different naturally available organic oils present in the market and we created a unique plant formulation, a liquid based formulation which we now spray on crops and gives the protection activity and then mixed with the soil increases productivity. Yeah, that is truly innovative Kaushik. Promoting weeds and useful product is a remarkable approach. Your solution shows great potential in addressing the concerns of farmers and promoting sustainable agriculture. It is truly inspiring. And what inspired you to come up with this innovative solution for pest control in agriculture? Ma'am, honestly my inspiration did not start with the problem actually it was a personal thing. So I started my entrepreneurial journey when I was in my engineering only ma'am and I had always been like a rebel without a cause kind of guy. And I'll tell you a very interesting story of why I say this. So I was never a very academically strong student till my intermediate, till my 12th. I was intermediate like a 60 to 70% kind of guy never excelled academically. Even when I started doing engineering I did not get some amazing 8 pointer or 9 pointer kind of guy. I have always been a 6.5 to 7 kind of guy but I have always had this belief kind of thing that I have I always wanted to be at a leadership position. I enjoyed positions of responsibility position of leadership qualities. So my journey started when I actually started appearing for B plan competitions and being from a tier 3 college we always had a confidence barrier that we will not be able to compete with tier 1 colleges in terms of their ideas, in terms of their access to resources. So I participated in an event called CITIS that is being organized by IIT Kharagpur. It's the largest technical festival of the country. And there I applied for a B plan competition under the theme called Waste to Value. And subsequent means ironically I was there were many competitors from different premium institutes of the country but we were able to get a prize in that and that started the chain reaction that this is what I want. This gives me adrenaline rush, this is the work that I enjoy the most. Then when I came back to my university everybody I was in my third year and that's when we had to start our minor and major projects. And now my challenge was that I want to do something which has not been done before because the problem with current situation is that the major projects of every student it's a continuation of what was left done before and then the continuation of some additional research into that. But my role model has always been that I believe in myself, I believe in my idea. If I have an idea I will keep believing in it and I will keep moving towards it. So our own university our own department was having this weed infestation problem. I got in touch with my HOD and with him I understood the problem that how big of this weed infestation problem is and that's when we got to know that around 60% of agriculture land is been infected by this weed, infested by this weed and as a result farmers are not able to grow useful crop because this weed is covering their agricultural land. So that's when I found that this is not just a local problem it's a natural problem along with it it is an international problem as well. This weed has invaded more than 30 countries and it's found across 5 continents. That's the impact that's of this weed infestation problem. So the problem was there now the only thing was to find a solution. And I did the basic thing I did started literature review around this weed all the researches that have been done around this weed. Most researches was done to eradicate this weed. There were very handful of research which was done to use this weed into a value-added product and I found an article which was in Prishi Jagran. It's an organization that posts agricultural stories and I found one article in Prishi Jagran where conventionally people have been using this weed as a compost. Now that's where I got the idea that if this weed can be used as a compost means this weed is having some properties that is adding to the compost properties and that's when I started analyzing about this weed. I started researching and I found the protocol of how to extract phytochemicals out of this weed and I did the research along with I collaborated with the Bangalore based lab which is now my corporate address as well and there I did my research, I did my analysis and I was able to find a product out of it. Great Kaushik. You have identified the problem in your own universities and you found a solution. Instead of eradicating you found you try to create develop a product instead of eradicating you develop the product and you are like supporting the vocal for local also. So great. How does your product compare to traditional chemical pesticides in terms of effectiveness and environmental impact? So in terms of comparison ma'am as I told I did a comparative analysis with a conventional farmer based out of in Thanbaad Jharkhand. He is a paddy based farmer. So in normal circumstances when the farmer was using conventional based farming he was able to get a productivity of 20 to 20 per acre. We got in touch with this farmer and we did a comparative analysis of we took one land and we divided that land into two batches. One batch was where we used conventional farming techniques like conventional urea, fertilizer, conventional chemical pesticide and in other batch we used just our product and no other chemical based any other conventional farming techniques. What we found that after the complete growth cycle of paddy the productivity of paddy in one strip was around 20 to quintal of per acre and in R it was around 45 quintal. That was the increment that we were able to get using our product and around 40 to 50 percent increment in terms of productivity. And also in terms of microdutry we did that our product not as NPK nitrogen phosphorus potassium in the soil as well as it brings down the soil pH. So the soil pH that we took in Jharkhand was around 9. We were able to bring that down between 5 to 7. And also electrical conductivity of the soil was very higher in 150, 160 vain and it is very essential that the soil electrical conductivity should be in between 0 to 3 microseconds. And because that ensures that the crop will get good water supply that ensures the crop will able to take water from the soil. If the electrical conductivity is very high the crops does not isn't able to take water from the soil. So it is essential to maintain that electrical conductivity also. So based on these analytics and based on these tests we were able to increase farmers income by 65,000 rupees in one acre land. And adding micronutrients, maintaining soil pH and maintaining electrical conductivity all these are benefits over existing chemical based product because chemical based product doesn't do that. Along with it chemical based product also starts targeting the beneficial microorganisms of the soil. We also did one another test in which we proved that our product only targets the pathogenic strains of the soil means the microbes which are only targeting the crops and it is causing harmful damage to the crops. But there are also there are microorganisms which are beneficial for the soil which increases crop growth. The key was that we should not harm these microbes as well. So we did those analysis and we found that this is an added advantage over existing chemical based products in the market. And also the cost of it is also there which I will explore more in the latter on this issue. Great Kaushik the benefits of our solution offers to farmers are significant like increasing productivity from 50 to 60 percent maintaining the soil conductivity level and maintaining the pH level. It is a great solution right from the protecting crops and increasing yield to promoting sustainable practices even innovation has the potential to passivity impact both agricultural productivity and environmental preservation. And Kaushik I believe you must have conducted any studies or trials to validate the efficacy of your product. If so what were the results please brief. As I told we did collaborate with an energy allocated lab in Bangalore and there we did those analysis the anti-fungal test we did. We also did cytotoxicity analysis. All of these were essential because it is a new kind of product and this weed has not been used before. We needed to prove that it will application of this product from this weed will have no side effect on human beings the people who are using it as well as it will not have any side effects on soil health as well as crop health. So what we did we did a very simple thing we did some bad in the lab itself we prepared some batches of a product and we tested our product on the pathogenic strains of microorganism as well as beneficial strains of the microorganism. We were able to prove that a product is working against the pathogenic strains and was not having any effect on the beneficial strain. This proved that it will have no impact on the soil health when we will be applying it in the field. And then we did a cytotoxicity test as well to prove that when the farmers will use it in case it spills there is spillage happening on the farmer it will have no impact on the skin as well as farmers will not have any problem if they accidentally inhale the smell of the product. So all those tests were done and we got accreditation from the NABL lab itself. Along with that we actually collaborated with universities we have collaborated now with Harvard Agricultural University and ICAR Indian Council of Agricultural Research and we are currently getting those certifications which will effectively be the game changer because now once when we will go to the field when we will go to the end user we will not tell them we will just show them the certificate and they will believe it because India's premier agricultural institute is now about to give us the certificate about our products as well. Along with that we also did some in-house tests on crops as well. We were able to increase we were able to stop infestation pest infestation on brinjal we were able to stop Millipug Millipug infestation on multiple flowering plants as well so these are some used case analysis that we did in our own lab and we were able to prove and we have the results for that as well. So the efforts made by you to validate your product shows your dedication to conduct the studies and trials to validate the efficacy of your product is remarkable. Kaushik can you share your experience in participating national innovation contest and how has your involvement in national innovation contest participation influenced your entrepreneurial journey? I think ma'am the national innovation contest was a very important step in our journey because we are still very early in our journey we are still a very early stage startup and platforms like this is a very important stage for our validation and for our visibility because we need to understand that in India competition is a very high end game and in order to survive a competition for a startup what we need is validation, networking, mentoring and funding opportunities all of these four opportunities was clubbed in one platform under the national innovation contest medium and this is an impeccable effort from our own government which started in 2016 with the onboarding of the startup startup India as an early stage startup I have not bootstrapped my business because I have been supported by my government of India at different levels of my journey not just when I have a product but even when I had an idea I was supported by my government they gave me mentoring when I was in my ideation phase when I was in my prototyping phase I received support when I was in my mini verbal phase I received support and when I am going to go into the early fraction phase that's when also there are skills to support me national innovation contest opened up opportunities for me in terms of getting multiple network because network equals to net worth of a startup and national innovation contest ensured that I was able to network with relevant people from the university in terms of mentoring under the national innovation contest there is a particular area where they provide mentoring to individual startup because what it was doing was that it was analyzing the startup needs and it was connecting me with those mentors which was essential for example in my national innovation contest I got a mentor from my own university in MBA and they helped me analyzing what should be the revenue model of my startup how should I establish the product market fit and what should be the different revenue streams that I can explore give you a use case example of how we benefited out of it initially we were developing a product because a powdered based product but talking to our mentors we realized that we need to switch from powder to liquid based product because powder when we are dusting powder it requires more manpower, more labor so we needed to switch to more sustainable product and we were able to switch from powder based to liquid based along with that we were only focusing on one revenue stream that was product sales but then we analyzed that in order to generate more we need to incorporate services also into our startup and this was done because of the mentoring we received and now we have incorporated biotechnology and agricultural services into our startup as well which you can find in our website as well as in our browser but these are the result of the national innovation contest of the participation of the innovation contest and of the support that we got from our government along in the form of national innovation contest it's evident that the national innovation contest by ministry of education innovation cell has had a significant impact on your entrepreneurial journey the mentoring and the networking support have played a pivotal role in shaping your path and fostering your growth as an entrepreneur I am very happy to learn from this one from one of the innovator like you and Kaushik, could you discuss any challenges or limitations you encountered during the development and implementation of your innovation? Yes sir So the major challenge that we have faced as a startup is the procurement of a raw material then because we need to understand that it is not an organized industry this raw material is available throughout the industry but it is not very organized and our main challenge was to maintain the supply chain of this raw material and I think the solution also came from the mentoring that we received actually from the innovation contest and from different government platforms there is another platform called the Mark platform which has been introduced by our government along with startup India and I got an idea of how I can streamline the supply chain of this weed which is available throughout the country but still not organized so what we started doing was we started collaborating with agriculture university and we started selling them a story every agriculture university if not every most agriculture university is having this weed infestation problem what we did with them, we collaborated with them and we sold them a story that you give us the weed and we will in turn produce the product out of it and you can showcase to your state government and the central government that you are finding ways to utilize this weed into a value added product so the agriculture university gets validation not just from state government but also from central government that's what they've needed and we needed products the supply chain management of a raw material and we got that so it was a win-win situation for us this was the first step second step what we are doing is that we are now collaborating directly with farmers from rural area whose field has been infestation with this weed and we are directly collecting it from farmers giving them another revenue source we directly purchase this abandoned raw material from farmers at a nominal price so these were the two techniques by which we were able to solve this the supply chain management of our raw material which was the major issue in our journey, ma'am Kaushik, it's good to know that you converted your challenges into opportunities like you have approached the farmers and collected the weeds and generated revenue for them also overcoming challenges during the development and implementation stages testament to your perseverance and commitment and your job very well in this in your entrepreneurial journey and congratulations Kaushik, I'm sure you have received some recognition for your interesting innovation could you please share a few of them with us? Yes, sir so our first recognition started with the prestigious Entrepreneur in Residence Fellowship which is again a fellowship that has been started by our government secondly I have been awarded with the Young Entrepreneur Award from Orissa Corporate Foundation and I was awarded that from Lok Sabha MP Dr. Aparajita Sarangi then I was awarded with the most innovative start-up of the country by Business Club of Entrepreneur and I received this award from a notable Bollywood actor, Hindi film actor Mr. Tushar Thakur then I also won another prestigious global fellowship called the Indian Agri Tech Innovation Network fellowship which is a fellowship from Gates Foundation Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and this fellowship was powered by Tata Press and we received it from the Implementing University was IIT Kanpur along with that we were at the start-up in the innovation week we were awarded we were recognized as the top 75 start-up of the country in agricultural domain we have also been recognized by UNDP India we were showcased they posted our start-up under their youth collab program and their official Instagram handle as well UNDP India we were also invited at Singapore Chamber of Commerce where we were able to where we demonstrated our idea and pitched our idea these are some of our key achievements and notable achievements along with that we have some grant support we have some funding support as well I believe I would talk about this later questions as well Well congratulations Kaushik you have already received lot of rewards and recognition from entire country and by sharing this with us, with our innovators you are setting an example for the young entrepreneurs also congratulations once again Kaushik what is the cost effectiveness of your product what are the other pest control methods such as chemical pesticides or other biopesticides so where we did our cost effectiveness calculation and we needed to understand so what we needed to understand is that we were clubbing fertilizer, pesticide, fungicide into one so that anyway would have given betterment to a farmer in terms of cost as well we need to understand that when a farmer goes to the market he or she has to buy different products for different types of infection different types of pests as well as he has to buy additional fertilizer to enhance crop growth in normal situation, in normal circumstances the starting price of a chemical based product starts have a price of around 450 to 600 rupees per litre when we talk about organic based product the price goes up to double of that rate of chemical which starts from 800, 900 or 1000 rupees the starting price of any organic based product is 1020 rupees per litre and when you take fertilizer it will again cost the farmer another 200, 300 rupees so in total if a farmer needs to switch to if the farmer is switching to organic he has to spend around 1200 to 1300 rupees for every purchases that he needs to do even if he is having a small land and if he is switching to and if he is using chemical he has to spend around 600 to 700 rupees in order to give an all down difference mechanism to his crops our product will be its price at just 449 per litre and it will not just work as pesticide but it will work as a pesticide organic pesticide, organic fungicide as well as organic crop stimulant so a farmer is buying one product but it is getting the benefit of multiple three different products for one single product therefore we believe that our product will fetch the market real soon and that is the benefit if I am the farmer and I go to the market to purchase the purchase products for my field I will not buy different products for different types of crops different types of infection rather if I see one product that gives benefit of multiple different products and gives an all down difference mechanism to the crops I would be interested to invest in this new product and therefore we believe that our product is more effective than existing conventional products in the market great the cost effectiveness of your product compared to other pest control methods coupled with its long term benefits and one solution for the multiple problem is to state its value as an investment for farmers all the best for your market ready product and Kaushik are there any specific crops or regions where your product has shown particularly promising results yes ma'am so we have got a great result on chilli, capsicum, brinjal, moringa leaves leafy vegetables paddy then in house gardens in flowering plants as well as medicinal plants such as tulsi, moringa leaves snake plant all of these crops and plants have shown great result under the application of our product in terms of they have gotten good productivity their productivity has been ensured in terms of the length of the crop in terms of the flowering of the crops in terms of blooming of the crop as well as we were able to stop infestation in particularly in brinjal mellibug infestation also in mulberry leaves as well as in paddy we were able to stop infestation as well good Kaushik you have already tested your product in lot of plants and Kaushik have you received support from other sources in terms of financial or any other support yes ma'am we have received multiple different support from different parts of a country different government support particularly government support only and we have been supported not just one time but at different stages of our entrepreneurial journey of a startup journey we have been supported we got support from AICT itself under the we received funding after under the national innovation contest we have received support from agriculture under the scheme called Pusha Krishi then we have received support from DST under a scheme called NIDI EIR and NIDI Prayas and then we have received support from very initially when I started my journey I received support from IIT Mundi it's an incubator and they supported us with the initial mini kickstart grant along with IIT Mundi we received support from IIM Amdabad they also gave us a student innovation grant and along with that we have received support from startup Gujarat when I was a student in Gujarat I received support from Gujarat under the student startup innovation policy and we have also received support from startup Pohistar as well good to know you have already supported by many grants and seed funding support and we wish you all the best your product will support from the angel investors as well in the future Kaushik how scalable is your innovation do you anticipate any challenges in scaling up a production or distribution yes sir so the global biopassade market is projected to grow for $130 billion to $140 billion the Indian biopassade market is projected to grow for $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion if we talk about consumption biopassade consumption increase of $5,151 to $6,340 and chemical pesticide consumption increase from $55,000 to $57,000 in the just 3 years period so both in terms of consumption and value wherever you place our product is expected to show an upward trend going by these analyses we estimate it as a serviceable obtainable market would be around $331 million and in order to achieve this number we need to target around 15 to 40% of our population and so we truly believe that our product is not just sustainable but also scalable because India is an agro-based country and we are moving towards organic economy not just we our government is also putting a lot of effort to give dividends for farmers who are into organic farming in terms of getting premium price for the organic produce and I believe that using our product we can change organic agriculture which is less than 3% now to more than 50% in the next 5 years Kaushik it's really impressive that you have a detailed study of your market and we wish you all the best to reach out the maximum population by your product and Kaushik what advice would you give to newcomers considering starting their own venture Ma'am my only advice is that don't think about starting just start because what happened with today's generally when it happened with me that we always think about starting and doing so we never get the right time to start when you think about it when is the right time to start your entrepreneurial venture it is now because the market is ready to accept new entrepreneurs and even if you don't have an innovative idea you feel somebody is doing similar things and you have enough opportunity to excel at the place that you are starting and that's my only suggestion to newcomers or young entrepreneurs or people thinking about starting their entrepreneurial that take the leap of faith and start now because now is the time to start and don't worry about funding, networking, mentoring there are opportunities there are people to support you in different stages of your journey and not just private organization even more than private organization there are government based organization government based agencies government based incubators who will take you in who will take you take your idea in and will groom you to become a value added startup a sustainable startup in the future a startup that makes difference to the society and creates employment not just for yourself but also for the youth of the country great don't look at the problem just start working on it is your advice for the entrepreneur great advice Kaushik for all our young entrepreneurs overall Kaushik your innovative solution and dedication to sustainable pest control in agriculture are truly commendable your work has the potential to make a significant difference in the lives of our farmers and health for environment also thank you thank you Kaushik thank you for joining with us thank you very much thank you for having us here ma'am having me here and thank you for giving me an opportunity for sharing my story to a national platform because without the support of a nice ministry of education I won't be able to reach such a big audience at such an easy medium ma'am and I will always be grateful for an opportunity like this and in the future we create a considerable impact this will be the moment when it all started thank you very much ma'am thank you so that's all from us in today's edition of changemakers but keep watching for some more such inspiring stories till then keep ideating and keep innovating thank you