DeHaat: This startup gives agriculture services, financial aid; caters to 52,000 farmers

In a country entirely dependent on agriculture and technology seeping in rapidly, this startup has successfully merged the two to give the perfect platform for Indian farmers. DeHaat is a startup that aims to offer end to end agricultural services to Indian farmers, so as to improve the efficiency in the agriculture sector. 

The objective of the startup started by Shashank Kumar and Manish Kumar in 2012, is to provide for the various farmer needs such as seeds, fertilizers, equipment, crop advisory, and market linkage, with extremely trained micro entrepreneurs. Moreover, the services provided also include customised crop reminder in the local language and crop monitoring support. 

The farmers, with the help of the technology led platform of DeHaat, is able to sell his/her farm produce directly to institutional buyers. They get access to getting their queries rectified by the experts on various lines such as agricultural input, field visit or agricultural output, via toll free numbers or the DeHaat mobile application, where one can type down or record the question.

Agricultural inputs include soil quality, seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, mechanization, water, credit and insurance whilst agricultural outputs have production, productivity, storage, processing, marketing, market formation, and FPO formation. 

Further, DeHaat also assists in mechanization, land use modelling and training. 

Currently, DeHaat has benefited over 52,000 farmers in the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, with 96 physical DeHaat centres, 150 trained entrepreneurs and 100 institutional buyers, to facilitate agricultural produce. 

The platform also has partnered with the likes of UPL Ltd, IDBI Bank, IFFCO, DuPont, Pepsico, Bayer Ag and Yara International to name a few.