Ahmedabad:  Increasing awareness among consumers of the health benefits, coupled with rising disposable incomes, is making organic vegetables and fruits the preferred choice across many Indian kitchens. Organic products, which until now were mainly being exported, are now finding more consumers in the domestic market. Although health is the key reason for the surge in demand for organic products, other incidental benefits such as better taste and being environment friendly are also driving growth. Not only is this a win-win situation for consumers but also for the growers of organic products as the returns are profitable. According to ASSOCHAM, the current market for organic foods in India is pegged at Rs 2,500 Crores, and is expected to reach Rs 6,000 Crores by 2015.

Started by Mr. Ketan Parmar, Krishi Naturals, a social venture supported by DBS – TISS program is bringing in a new change in the way organic farming is done. The venture aims at providing a sustainable livelihood source to marginal farmers by promoting organic farming among them and providing an available market for organic products.

Krishi Naturals’ engages closely with farmers by disseminating advice on the best practices for organic farming and providing technical support. While doing this, the bigger challenge is the perception about organic farming being considered far less productive than the traditional method of agriculture using chemical inputs. Farmers who evince interest are organised into a co-operative. What makes the Krishi Naturals business model unique is that, it also provides market linkages for the organic products grown by the farmers. In other words, on the supply side it provides the farmers a guaranteed market and on the demand side the venture reaches out to housing societies in Baroda and provides weekly baskets of fresh organic produce to the residents.

This distribution model, based on seasonal subscriptions, provides farmers with a stable, predictable income and ensures that only those crops which will be sold is grown, thus reducing wastage.

These advance subscriptions also provide much-needed working capital.

“I always wanted to do something to promote Nature’s way of farming, the concept of Krishi Naturals is to providea local, transparent and simple supply chain between farmers and consumers.” said Mr. Ketan Parmar, Founder, Krishi Naturals. He further added, “Our plan is to create an outreach in two to three districts at present for the dairy products and cover most parts of Gujarat in the next two years”.

Commenting on this project, Ms. Sheran Mehra, Head-Group Strategic  Marketing & Communications, DBS Bank (India), said, “The ‘DBS-TISS Social Entrepreneurship Program’ is our commitment to give back to society and is a platform that ensures sustainable development of different communities through innovative social enterprises. We believe that organic farming should be enthusiastically adopted as it will not only strengthen the economy but will also reduce our carbon foot print. Krishi Naturals is truly spearheading a green revolution of a different sort.”