Notes from June 23 call w sanjeev (Unlicensed) Gautam Mandewalker Ashu Sikri (Unlicensed)
From Bharosa co-founders Aditya Trivedi and Pranjal Dubey
Got a bit more clarity on the model.
Bharosa identifies and helps individual farmers execute on value-addition business opportunities like ghee production and daal processing
Bharosa’s role is to 1) facilitate access to capital 2) drive sales of farmer production 3) provide an operating playbook / business plan which the farmer executes.
On capital, Bharosa identifies a bank / NBFC interested in lending to farmers. Benefit to the bank is that Bharosa originates the loan, and de-risks it by helping the farmer sell
On sales, Bharosa sells the individual farmers' products under their own Bharosa brand. They are selling through ONDC and doing things to build consumer trust like QR codes so customers have transparency to the producing farmers. Selling retail and B2B (targeting govt procurement). Bharosa takes a cut of the sales it facilitates
On playbook / biz plan, Bharosa is identifying the equipment (which farmers purchase using the funds Bharosa facilitates through their financing partners), providing production guidance, branded packaging materials, etc. Basically, farmers execute the Bharosa playbook.
We didn’t get into specific numbers but it sounds like they have some success with this model for ghee and daal production at pilot scale in MP and a few other places. Apparently they have a list of ~15 products like oilseeds, ketchup and grains where there is potential for differentiation on the roadmap
Bharosa is supporting FPOs but prefers to engage with individual farmers in the model detailed above
Strong perspective on when to support collective vs individual farmer assets. Basically, whenever real-estate and land is involved (eg, storage facility, drying facility), a collective asset make sense. For anything else, individual makes sense. Aditya’s perspective is that profit sharing among a collective becomes really tricky bc high performing farmers don’t want to be weighed down by free-riders.
Feel that FPOs need more exposure to investments that actually make sense, suggested peer exposure and learning is critical here otherwise decision making is emotional and directed towards things with low ROI. Need to think about good mechanisms to avoid this in funding platform.
Partnering with a group called Vikalp which produces relatively low cost farm implements that reduce drudgery esp for women (eg scythe).
Next steps. Bharosa to share a brief on an FPO in MP who wants to invest in storage facilities, which could be a pilot opportunity. It’s mostly women members and their commodities include wheat, soy, onion, garlic. Also, Bharosa is keen for us to be a capital provider in their model and/or invest in Bharosa (not sure that makes sense but we can learn more).
Notes from June 2 call w Vineet Singh Gautam Mandewalker
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