Technology has had a profound impact on the farming sector, helping farmers to improve their productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Technology is also enabling farmers to automate many of their processes, reducing the need for manual labour and increasing efficiency. ReshaMandi is enabling the stakeholders to eliminate all challenges and improve their efficiency. Rajeev Ranjan, Editor, Digital Terminal recently talked to Saurabh Agarwal, Founder and CTO, ReshaMandi. The discussion revolved around the farming sector, challenges, adoption of technology, its benefits and much more. Read the full conversation below.
Rajeev: How has technology helped the farming sector in India to innovate further in the last few years?
Saurabh: The advancement of digital technology in India has brought about various solutions for the problems faced by farmers, such as soil concerns, climate change, irrigation issues, and gaps in the supply chain. By leveraging technology, farmers can now make informed decisions, adopt more sustainable irrigation practices, reduce waste, and ultimately achieve higher crop yields and incomes. Most farmers now have access to the internet and are open to embracing new technology. Implementing the latest tech to its core, the Indian agritech market has the potential to reach $24 billion by 2025, as per a report by EY. If modern agriculture techniques like genetic manipulation, aeroponics, etc are applied widely in the near future, millions of farmers will be benefited.
Rajeev: How did you incorporate technology into the supply chain and farming process?
Saurabh: Enabling technology at the farm level is a highly effective approach for improving crop yield and quality, and is a key aspect of ReshaMandi's business model. By utilizing AI-enabled crop tracking and providing IoT-based advisories through their app, ReshaMandi is able to significantly reduce the risk of crop failure, increase production capacity, and ultimately boost revenue for stakeholders. For example, in sericulture the quality of the cocoons has improved dramatically, leading to a more than 35% increase in farmers' revenue.
Through mobile apps, IoT devices, and tech-enabled grading systems, ReshaMandi is enabling its stakeholders to digitally optimize their operations, improve decision-making, and achieve greater efficiency and profitability. Our 2.0 version of IoT devices is helping reduce the likelihood of crop failure by 30%. Farmers currently using the device have recorded a 10 to 15% boost in farm-level yields
Rajeev: What technical assistance is provided to the stakeholders through ReshaMandi super App?
Saurabh: The ReshaMandi Super app connects different stakeholders across the supply chain. The platform is a single-stop solution providing linkages across verticals as well as integrations with fintech partners and marketplaces. ReshaMandi’s wide farmer base uses the app for 95% of transactions. Through the app’s payment mechanism, more than 40% of ReshaMandi’s stakeholders make payments, which provides acknowledgments for the same. Besides English, the app is available in five Indian languages – Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Marathi.
Weavers can reach a large merchant base via the app, where they have listed more than 5000 saree SKUs. Weavers can create a product catalog of their fabrics and display it to numerous retailers nationwide. ReshaMandi is helping retailers solve the procurement issue and it has played a major role in increasing the revenue of retailers. To give an example, a retailer in Delhi had to travel across India for sourcing as the consumers needed specific textiles. After his introduction to ReshaMandi, he has been able to open new stores, and quality assurance and traceability have become much easier.
The app also provides assistance in scientifically grading the cocoons, fair pricing, AI-led yarn grading, & linkages to the reelers. It is also providing high-quality raw materials with ample financial support to the yarn manufacturers and reelers and with which they can easily save time and money on travel and also increase their profits. Currently, over 60,000 stakeholders have joined the ReshaMandi journey using the RM Super App, and more than 1000+ daily active users perform 40% of their transactions digitally.
Rajeev: How do you teach your partners about your latest product portfolio? Is there any upcoming training program planned for this year?
Saurabh: Our endeavor is to create technology that is simple and efficient for all our stakeholders. We strive to make our technology easily adaptable and readily available for use. Our sales and field executives are trained on each release and product update to ensure they are equipped to assist stakeholders in using ReshaMandi technology.
Our product team remains actively engaged with stakeholders, making regular visits to business clusters to better understand their pain points and help them derive the greatest possible benefit from our technology. We conduct interactive training programs and on-field activities frequently to ensure our farmers receive adequate information and knowledge.
Rajeev: How does Reshamandi leverage AI and IoT to bring standardization to natural fiber quality?
Saurabh: Reshamandi’s IoT technology is used to help farmers control water usage in mulberry plantations by sending real-time advisories about the soil conditions, ensuring that the plants are neither over nor under-watered. The RM app helps farmers analyze the soil moisture and carbon content..ReshaMandi leverages AI/ML technology to facilitate the grading of cocoons, benefitting both farmers and reelers.
With accurate grading, farmers can obtain fair prices for their produce, while reelers can procure high-quality raw materials for yarn production. Additionally, the ReshaSaathi Rearing Shed IoT device provides analytics on temperature, humidity, light, and air quality inside the silkworm sheds, with advisories sent via the RM Mobile App. By combining rearing shed automation with ReshaSaathi, Wi-Fi plugs, and automation devices, Reshamandi helps farmers in getting quality produce.
Rajeev: What are your future plans? What is your business goal by the year 2025?
Saurabh: Our aim is not just to make India's iconic natural fabrics available to the world, but to enable the value chain of fabrics, apparel, home furnishings, and accessories through technology-first solutions that bring about transparency, fair pricing, and quality in the fashion & textile industry. As we expand, we strive to become a comprehensive natural fibre sourcing platform globally, across the Middle East, Europe, North and South America, and South East Asia.
Our objective is to create a business model that covers the entire ecosystem, incorporating various services such as merchandising, automation, and sourcing, among others. With ReshaMandi, we want to provide a convenient one-stop solution for all our stakeholders, enabling them to source and sell natural fibres & products with ease. By doing so, we hope to revolutionize the fashion and textile industry, making it more transparent, fair, and sustainable.
