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I Support Farming!!! Do YOU???

By Vijayakumar Mani on 15 Comments / 4304 views

Hi All,

I have always been a mute spectator of TRHs group but I would read each & every post that comes here. Just like daily reads of Economic Times & other stuffs, THRS was always on top on daily routine 🙂 You guys rock!! But still have a complaint!!!  Not sure why you ppl don’t count Chennai as an option for Open House 😉 May be yes, Conservative??? Not Vocal Enough???

Anyways, that’s not the topic for the discussion…

After working for more than a decade in IT & Recruitment industry, finally got the courage to Be my own boss/ to Start something on my own/ To get handsome money/ dig my own pit ;)). I had started an HR Consulting firm called – Vista Hire Consultants based out of Chennai, helping startups in hiring for their team. It’s gonna be an year of operation. Yes! None of the days were same during the last one year. Emotions were Up, Down, high, low, Rock Bottom, Deep inside the sea, over the top of Mount Everest!! End of the day, I am enjoying this 🙂 So far so good!

Ah Again! This is not the topic for discussion…

We have couple of our ancestral land near Pondicherry where I belong to. We have been doing farming (Goat/ Shrimp etc) for quite sometime. So thought of making it as a proper company for various farming activities & we formed an LLP org & have been doing farming activites. Things were going great. We saw a lot of nearby lands were almost empty all through the season. When we enquired about the people who were doing farming there, we were shocked to hear the reasons. Most of the people have started going to labour work because they did not have money to do farming. Some people went to the government’s “Assured 100 days employment programs” where the farmers used to work as labourers in creating roads, canals, ponds etc. Couple of them sold their lands to Real Estate people.

That’s when the entrepreneurial instinct in me thought when I myself, can do farming, why can’t people from the cities do. I along with my mentors, brainstormed about the pros & cons. Did a complete market research. Interviewed the farmers and spoke to people in the cities & finally we arrived at a solution called iSupport Farming Services which has the motive of bringing urban people to do farming with the farmers through iSupport Farming Team. We will be a medium that will connect the rural & urban people so that working capital for carrying out agriculture will be invested by individual or group of people in the urban society. On the havest, the produce will be shared among the urban people who have brought in the capital and the farmer who has invested him time & efforts to do farming.

How it Works!

We have carefully chosen select farmers across the state and across various fields, based on their experience in agriculture, past performance in their crops and various other parameters and have enrolled them in I Support farming.

These farmers will be your partners with whom you can join hands to carry out your desired agricultural activities. Subscribers opting to take up farming in a certain sector will be pooled into small groups and will be assigned a  farmer who has expertise in that farming sector. This group of subscribers and farmers will work closely in carrying out the farming activities, under the guidance of ISF.

All transactions and usage of funds of the subscribers will be recorded online and they will be provided 24/7 access to the information. The subscribers can login at any point in time and view the spend and obtain updates on the progress made in the farming.

As a pilot project, we are launching it in Chennai and looking at expanding it to South India/ National & International in coming years. To Start with, we are organizing an event on April 17th in a Village near Chennai & the theme is “A Day in the Farm – Become a Farmer for a Day”  . If you are in and around Chennai, please do RSVP so that we can coordinate.

Happy to hear your views.

Regards,

Vijay

VistaHire Consultants

F1 Farms LLP

iSupport Farming

Contact: +91 9566034236

Email: vijay@vsearch.co/ info@isupportfarming.com

Twitter: VijayakumarM

Facebook

UPDATE:

It’s been quite some time since I logged in to TRHS! Was running around like mad 🙂 Just wanted a give you all an update!!!

It’s exactly 6 months since I made this post..To be honest, we were little skeptical when we started this venture of “I Support Farming” with tonnes of questions floating around our minds. We have had few members who came forward to support us and light the ray of hope that boosted our confidence. 

In the first crop of Paddy in 8 Acres, we have achieved farming profit of around 24% which was shared between the subscribers and the farmers. Our subscribers had a return of around 10% in a cycle of 3 months crop 🙂 Isn’t that good enough for 3 months 😉

Currently we have onboarded around 50 Acres of Land & have more than 40 Paying customer 🙂 Looking at growing 300% year on Year!!! 

Pls let me know your thought!!! Wish us Good Luck!

Also subscribe with us & Take up Farming 🙂 Pls check out www.isupportfarming.com

Regards,

Vijay

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15 Comments

  1. hi vijay,

    neat initiative – i love farming ventures!

    we have another interesting one on trh right now – do check it out!

    https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/grow-aquaponics-double-treat-of-growing-fish-and-veggies-1

    coming to your query of an Open House – we have open houses only in mumbai, delhi & b’lore. but we do have rodinhooders of city meetups across india that are organised by rodinhooders themselves. you are more than welcome to organise one – in fact hrishikesh datar of vakil search has kindly offered to give his office space to organise a meetup!

    there’s a chennai thread on the site – do look for it and connect with rodinhooders of chennai!

    in case alok is visiting chennai we can plan an OH well in advance (i usually announce an OH one month prior and it takes a good month for me to curate a memorable event!)

  2. Sure Asha…I am game. Pls let me know in advance. will plan & execute

  3. Yes Vijaykumar I do support farming. 

    Actually I have been following – and I am a  fan of food processing which comes a next step after farming.

    Will get in when the right opportunity arises in and around Maharashtra.

    In my findings the simplest project can be of Tomato Puree.

    Consider it when the opportunity arises. 

    Best Regards for your progress and Good Luck.

  4. I know a few people who would love this idea.  How do you get this into more of a franchise, so that other “ISFs” for different regions can sprout ?

  5. HI Mahesh!

    I haven’t thought about Franchisees for now. It’s a good Idea though. Thought we will do the ISFs ourselves across locations so that the customers will have the Trust factor about the brand. Thanks for the suggestion. Will look into this.

    Cheers,

    Vijay

  6. Thanks for the suggestions Vinod.

    As you have mentioned, food processing comes well after the farming. Also it will involve lot of Govt approvals, compliance, machinery, etc. Yes, once we establish ISF, we can get into the next step food processing, foods exports etc.

    – Vijay

  7. Cool stuff Vijay. Especially the aspect that is solves a pretty major problem for the country.
    Have a couple of friends who are working on similar ventures in the farming space in Delhi.

    Happy to connect if interested (PM)

  8. Hi

    I support farming. have a soft corner for farmers. Bt i hav sm queries.

    1. Subscriber’s share would be produce or the income from produce?

    2. Who will handle to move the produce from farm to grain market (mandi) ?

    Thnx.

  9. Sure Harkirat. Happy to connect with them. Please write to us @ info@isupportfarming.com

  10. Hi Atul,

    The subscibers can choose either to take back the produce or the income/ returns from the produce.

    iSupport Farming (ISF) team will take care of the end supply chain as well – Farm to grain market so that we can monitor the price in which the farmer is selling at. This will make the whole process transparent for the subscribers.

  11. Thank you Asha for the mention! Extremely glad to see our initiative grabbing some attention!

    Hi Vijay,
    It’s a very amazing and interesting concept.. If you would like to team it up with our aquaponics, maybe we can work out an agreement here.. Do get in touch.

    Regards,
    Sathya

  12. Question about this section

    Goat Farming

    Goat Farming is a long term option where in your investment will be on the purchase of the animals. The animals will be reared by the farmer and the growth is achieved by the young ones (Kids) produced by the parent animals. The kids grow and they also start to produce their kids, thus resulting in growth of the number of animals which will contribute to the growth of your money. The farmers will get an equal share of the young one produced for their efforts in raising and rearing the animals.

    For example, assuming that you invest in goat farming. Your investment is used for purchase of goats, both male and female. they will be reared by the farmer. On maturity, which is about 15 months, the goats give birth to kids (normally 2). Out of the 2 kids given birth, one will be added to your stock and one will be given to the farmer. Now your total stock grows from the number of parent stock plus the young ones. The young ones again after 15 months will become adults and they give birth to kids in addition to the kids from the original parents and the stock grows.

    Question: What happens to the goats?

    How do you make money from Goats?

  13. Paddy / Rice – Regular FarmingProduct Rice

    Varieties: White Ponni, Ponmani, ADT varieties

    Farm Location: Villupuram, Cuddalore District

    Subscription starts: June, 2016

    Plan Launch / Season: Samba

    Crop Duration: 4 to 6 months

    No. of units available for subscription: 100 Nos

    Cost per unit: INR 5000

    Expected return per unit: INR 6000 – 7000

    Investment / Risk Category: Low – Low

    Can you please explain the ROI here? Its very confusing:

    Is the return Rs 6000 – 7000 on Rs 5000 (120% return)

    or on 5000*100 = 5 lacs (which is then only 1.2%)?

  14. Hi Alok,

    As far as the goat farming is concerned, it is a long term investment where the subscribers get the returns after 2-3 years. At the end of 2nd year or 3rd Year, based on the Subscribers’ wish, the total live stocks (Both parent & kids) will be sold in the market by our team & the returns will be given.

    Based on our experience in the past, it takes atleast 2 years to get a result of close to 30-35% return on the investment (Considering the mortality rates of the live stocks as well)

    Paddy/ Rice – Regular Farming:


    Total Cost of Cultivation for Paddy in an acre of land: Rs. 25000

    We are splitting this into 5 units each so that people can invest as low as Rs. 5000.

    We will form a team of 5 people and a farmer & do agriculture. At the end of harvest, the crop sold in the market, will be shared among the 5 people. Considering our past experience, we can expect a sale of paddy worth Rs. 30000 to Rs. 35000 per acre.

    So if you invest: 5000. Get an return of anywhere between 20%-40% which is approx Rs.1000 to 2000

    What we have mentioned is Expected return per unit: 5000+1000 = 6000

    PS: People can buy as many units as possible up to 100 to maximize their ROI.

  15. It’s been 6 Months since I posted this….Updated the post with some info.. Pls let me know your thoughts…

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