A triple-bottom-line company that works intending to produce pesticides free food by educating their farmers in a manner that won’t add weight to their pockets, Bengaluru-based Safe Harvest is supporting marginal Indian farmers and delivering chemical-free products to all its consumers. In the process of ensuring pesticide-free food delivery, there is direct procurement of food products from farmers and NGOs including Farmers Producers Organizations. To find out more about the company’s operations and plans, AgroSpectrum spoke to Lohit Mohan, Head- procurement and partner relations, Safe Harvest, Bengaluru.
How do you make sure that the products delivered by you are not pesticides laden?
Stringent testing at various stages of the supply chain eliminates this risk and ensures that Safe Harvest products are pesticide-free and are safe to consume. There are several checks and balances in place to ensure this, some of which are listed below:
● All of our farmers are associated with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) or Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that have a rich experience of implementing NPM (Non-Pesticidal Management of agriculture) on the ground. Almost all of our partner CSOs have highly trained agricultural professionals who ensure that context-specific Package Of Practices are developed and implemented by the farmers they work with. Over time, these CSOs have developed rigorous internal systems that help farmers strictly adhere to NPM protocols.
● Season to season farmer diaries containing information on the crops grown, and the sustainable interventions (and inadvertent deviations if any) undertaken by the farmer to manage her/his crop are rigorously maintained.
● Regular audits and checks are conducted to ensure that no contamination or commingling of NPM and non-NPM produce takes place.
● Lastly, all the products are tested for over 120 pesticide residues in FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) accredited laboratories as per the Jaivik Bharat Standards at various levels of the supply chain to ensure that the product that reaches the consumers is pesticide-free. The test report from the accredited laboratories is evidence (certificate) of the commodity being pesticide-free.
What benefits do farmers get out of it?
Marginal farmers have practised pesticide-free farming for years. But despite the superior quality, their produce gets clubbed with conventional produce as there is no separate category for pesticide-free produce. Safe Harvest gives its produce the recognition it deserves and helps connect the farmers to consumer markets. Farmers practising NPM and working with Safe Harvest earn approximately 20per cent more than farmers cultivating conventionally. The switch to bio-inputs is beneficial to farmers as their input costs fall when they no longer need to purchase expensive chemical pesticides. Moreover, the shift to bio-inputs (made from locally available local inputs such as neem, chillies, onions and custard leaves) eliminates the risk of the harmful effects of spraying synthetic pesticides (some of which may even be carcinogenic) such as nausea and skin irritation in the short term and neurological disorders and immunity-related issues in the long run. Safe Harvest also ensures the collection of the produce at the farmgate and helps provide bags for storage, which further benefits the small and marginal farmers by reducing transport and storage costs.
Safe Harvest works with 100,000 small and marginal farmers across India many of whom are women. Safe Harvest organises market focused training, helps with bookkeeping, sets up protocols and management structures to help farmers belonging to the FPOs move up the value chain. Safe Harvest also helps its partners secure low-interest loans with Banks and NBFCs (Non-Banking Financial Companies) to help them in their procurement operations. Further, by giving them market access through the brand, Safe Harvest also helped instil a sense of confidence and empowerment among the farmers.
Moreover, non-pesticide management of agriculture couples its no synthetic pesticide usage rule with other immensely beneficial practices such as crop rotation, mixed cropping, intercropping and maintaining soil health and in-situ moisture (which reduces the need for irrigation). All these reasons make pesticide-free farming the most practical, scalable and sustainable option currently available to farmers.
What are the areas you carry forward your deliveries to? ( mention geographical constraints if any)
Safe Harvest is a category leader in the pesticide-free food commodities segment. Safe Harvest currently works with 30 FPOs/CSOs spread across 12 states, and their products are available across 10 cities including New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata in all major supermarkets- Spencers, Spar, More etc. and on all major e-commerce sites- Flipkart, BigBasket, Swiggy Instamart, Super Daily, Amazon etc. Safe Harvest is committed to bringing only the best and the safest of produce from ‘her farm to your kitchen.
Which cities are the major contributors or say major players for your company ( if possible do mention the statistical data)?
A majority of Safe Harvest’s sales, approximately 70 per cent is from e-commerce platforms and are balanced from large format offline stores. The products are widely available in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Delhi where they sell the most, though we plan to expand our reach in other Tier I and Tier II cities soon.
What are the main threats and challenges faced during the delivery process?
At the sourcing level, Safe Harvest ensures that its partner organisations practice pesticide-free agriculture. However, there could be inadvertent contamination due to wind drift and water from contiguous farms that practice conventional agriculture. Another potential source of contamination is during processing where inadvertent commingling of produce might take place. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, Safe Harvest ensures that the NPM products from the farm gate are stored, transported and milled/processed separately from non-NPM products. Bleed runs-where a portion of the processed NPM material is kept separately and not mixed with the rest of the NPM produce- are conducted without fail to ensure that contamination happens at the processing stage of the value chain. The products are then stored in hermetic cocoons, which are filled with carbon dioxide, for two weeks to eliminate the presence of any residual pests from the farm gate. Minimal processing of the products is done to ensure that the nutritional content of the products remains intact. The products are then packed carefully in food-grade materials. Lastly, the stringent testing at various stages of the supply chain eliminates this risk and ensures that Safe Harvest products are pesticide-free and are safe to consume.
At the marketplace, the biggest challenge is that of educating people at scale to adopt safe and healthy food habits by embracing pesticide-free products. As the pioneer and torch-bearer, while Safeharvest has been doing its part to inform consumers, the task needs much larger resources and mobilisation of opinions in this direction.
What are the major plans for the company in 2022?
Safe Harvesting is planning an aggressive expansion into new geographies including Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad in addition to other cities such as Lucknow, Kochi and Kolkata by 2022-23. The firm is also planning to place the products in other major retail chains across India as well as in local food stores. The long-term goal of Safe Harvest is to establish the pesticide-free category of food in retail markets. It is working to ensure that our partner Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) climb up the value chain and smallholder farmers who manage and run these FPOs can realise a higher share of the consumer rupee.
Ila Kaushik
(ila.kaushik@mmactiv.com)
