Kovel Foundation

Owned by Ashu Sikri (Unlicensed)
Feb 17, 2022
2 min read

Notes from meeting w CEO

 

Kovel 12th Nov- Krishnaji Rao CEO Kovel

  • 9 FPOs mostly including small farmers ( 7K members)

  • chitoor - ground nut, paddy

  • kurnool - paddy varitier

  • vishakapatnam - spices - black pepper, coffee, turmeric, etc

  • east godavari - cashew - 3000 farmers -

  • Started doing transactions in last 3 years.

 

  • 80 lakh business

  • supported by technoserve, idh for blakc pepper, turmeric, coffee

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  • kovel in <> linkage

  • 2 cr target

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  • natrual farming practices

  • tribal areas - credit services, traders dominate the market

  • building community inst.

  • 20% premiuim by direct marketing

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  • looking for financial service support

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  • missing processing and forward integration

  • 20 tons of cashew nuts

  • controlled exploitation by giving digital moisture meters/ electronic weighing machines

  • building farmers capacity thru trainings, videos , msgs etc

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  • technoserve - prod and market

  • idh- marketing

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  • looking for committed buyers, 2 more new companies planning to buy this year

  • technoserve provides database of big buyers

  • coffee - full supply already sold

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  • 1 CRP per 100 farmers, 5-6 staff per fpo

  • farmer wise data collected, expected qty, land holding, 3 fpo has computers, deo enters the data

  • manual data collection using excel at the middle of season

  • Collected data is used to reach out to big buyers at middle of season

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  • fpo doesn't have enough storage and working capital

  • limited holding capacity

  • discourage any kind of inputs (organic/inorganic)

  • focus on cashew and tamarind

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  • credit is a major issue for tribal farmers, taking loan from middlemen, hence blocked to sell to them

  • loan from bank - some goes to pfo, some goes to middle men

  • 20% of the production consumed by FPO

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  • on the spot payments, trying for digital payments

  • connectivity with bank is really bad

  • cash payment is asked by farmers

  • not major smartphone penetration - 30%



  • 25% premium, FPOs Samunnati/ Nab Kisan

  • Looking  for committed buyers, TATA Coffeee , Web sites.  Buyer  is able to purchase.

  • Doesn’t haven’t any dealings in Input materials.

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  • How many farmers do you have ? 3000+2000+ 2000

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Do you get options of future buys from traders/buyers ?-

TATA  Coffee/ Traceability,

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How do you pay your member farmers today? Any difficulties in that

process today? -Cash payment/ Part payment. 40% farmers have smart

phone.

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Do you see a role for technology to get reliable data to make any

informed decisions?

 

Important products   FPOs deal with  - Black pepper, Cashew, Turmeric and Coffee.  

D2C options- Need to  do primary level processing to deliver to the homes.

B2B options- Kovel has got few B2B options and is trying to explore more committed buyers for the long term. 

Carbon Credit -  Kovel and RYSS have  been promoting  natural farming practices (ZBNF) over 4-5 years for spices and other crops. Would be a good case for sustainable agri products.Â