{"id":3061,"date":"2024-07-17T10:40:34","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T10:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/founderlabs.in\/?p=3061"},"modified":"2024-07-17T10:57:16","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T10:57:16","slug":"tamilnadu-based-start-up-farmai-came-up-with-soilless-media-a-innovative-solution-in-farming-to-help-cut-input-costs-overcome-labour-shortage-mechanisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.founderlabs.in\/?p=3061","title":{"rendered":"To Improve Crop yield FARMAI Launched Innovative Solution &#8216;Soil-less media&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Start Up<\/strong> <strong>FARMAI&nbsp;came up with soilless media an innovative solution in farming to help cut input costs, overcome labour shortage and help mechanisation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>FARMAI is a Tamilnadu based startup came with this innovative solution a state-of-the-art soil-less media to raise young seedlings and ensure that the \u201cfirst 20 days\u201d of crop establishment improves yield and their resistance to disease.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Soil Less media will help cut input costs, overcome labour shortage and help mechanisation, says FARMAI founder and CEO<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<strong>\u201cThe objective of coming out with this soil-less media is to cut farmers\u2019 input costs, increase yield, overcome labour shortage and help farm mechanisation so that growers get a good return on their investment,\u201d said Subhash Bose, Founder and CEO of the company.<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The media is sold under \u201cvgro\u201d brand and helps cultivate paddy, sugarcane, vegetables and ornamental plants. \u201cThe plants seedlings are raised in the media as part of our policy that prevention is better than cure,\u201d he told&nbsp;<em>businessline<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Subhash Bose, Founder and CEO, FARMAI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>FARMAI doesn\u2019t stop with just providing the media but it continues to monitor the crop and provides \u201cactionable\u201d advisory to farmers until harvest through its other arm FX.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Growing the seedlings in the media helps ensure almost all the seeds germinate and transplantation is done on time, for example, in paddy. It will also be easy to transplant the seedlings using a sowing machine. It makes automation farm and post-harvest operations easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cWe have come up with this media keeping mechanisation in mind. It will not only help easy transplantation of crops such as paddy but will also help overcover problems of labour availability,\u201d he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Launched in 2020, FARMAI also creates micro-enterprises which can handle these operations in villages. \u201cWe train these entrepreneurs fully from preparing the media to how to help farmers take care of their crops until harvest,\u201d Bose said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"background-color:#f7cc62\" class=\"td_text_highlight_marker\">Read more Pebble launched Smart watch: <a href=\"https:\/\/founderlabs.in\/pebble-smartwatch-dome-launched-in-india-pebble-ultra-rapid\/\">https:\/\/founderlabs.in\/pebble-smartwatch-dome-launched-in-india-pebble-ultra-rapid\/<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Farmers\u2019 cost<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMicro-entrepreneurs can help sow the seedlings anywhere between 100 to 500 acres. It also needs a low investment of \u20b96-7 lakh including for buying transplanter and seed sowing machines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Entrepreneurs are given trays, soil-less media and seeds besides being provided technical consultancy. Even farmers are encouraged so that they can help other farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, the company operates in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka and partly in Andhra Pradesh. \u201cWe are now expanding to Punjab and Chhattisgarh as we are getting demand from there,\u201d said the company founder and CEO, who worked for over a decade-and-a-half with Syngenta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While, for example, farmers spend \u20b922,000 an acre, they end up gaining around \u20b950,000. \u201cWe ensure that farmers cut out needless expenditure on pesticides and insecticides,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bose said his company came out with the soil-less media as this can help increase yield by 15% with the same agricultural practice and seeds. \u201cIf you look at corn in the US, there is no chance to increase yield since it has peaked. But over here, prospects are good,\u201d the company founder and CEO said<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past four crop seasons, \u201cvgro\u201d soil-less media has proved its efficiency in helping 8,000 farmers covering 40,000 acres. The retention rate is 95 per cent, including franchises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bootstrapped firm<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The farmers decide on the seeds for raising the seedlings, though the startup makes its recommendations based on the season. FARMAI provides only the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FARMAI has been bootstrapped with Bose\u2019s wife also chipping in. \u201c95% cent of the fund is our own. We have a partner who has chipped in with the rest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ten years ago, Syngenta introduced the technology of growing seedlings in soil-less media in Tamil Nadu\u2019s Villipuram district. However, it did not make much progress, which experts say was mainly wrong due to the hub-and-spoke model it adopted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bose, who is a non-resident Indian, said farmers are now open to adapting to new technology and keen on mechanisation given the labour shortage. This technology can be applied to the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in paddy cultivation, which reduces seed requirement by over 50% and consumes less water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Start Up FARMAI&nbsp;came up with soilless media an innovative solution in farming to help cut input costs, overcome labour shortage and help mechanisation. FARMAI is a Tamilnadu based startup came with this innovative solution a state-of-the-art soil-less media to raise young seedlings and ensure that the \u201cfirst 20 days\u201d of crop establishment improves yield and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[643],"tags":[1087,1088,1081,1085,1086,536],"class_list":{"0":"post-3061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-start-up-news","8":"tag-crop","9":"tag-crop-yield","10":"tag-farmai","11":"tag-farmer","12":"tag-farming","13":"tag-innovation"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.3 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>To Improve Crop yield FARMAI Launched Innovative Solution &#039;Soil-less media&#039; - 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