Need a tractor or tractor-mounted equipment to quickly plant your crop, spray the occasional fertilizer and pesticide or need to harvest ? And you don’t have the equipment ? No worries. Help is just a call away.
At a time when cabs, food, healthcare and more are just a click-on-the-mobile-away, the latest to join the bandwagon, at least as far as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are concerned, are farm equipment.
Whether you need a planter, cultivator, rotavator, sprayer or a harvestor — all attached to a tractor, they are now just a call away, thanks to the innovation of three engineering graduates Dashmanth Reddy, Mithil Gandhi and Nitin Razdan.
These youngsters did their basic degree in different colleges but met while doing their Masters in Business Administration from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai. As fate willed it, their thoughts focussed on the idea of hiring out farm equipment, much on the lines of existing aggregators and they started ‘Farmringg’.
“Three out of 10 small and marginal farmers still use traditional farming methods and the average utilisation of equipment is less than 30 per cent. We bridge the gap by bringing together farmers and equipment owners, thus creating a win-win situation,” said Mr. Dashmanth Reddy.
For the equipment that Farmringg takes on hire, the company pays out anywhere between ₹ 30,000 and ₹ 40,000 a month. And when it hires out the same equipment to needy farmers, the rates vary and are per-hour basis. Working hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Farmringg is strict on timings.
“Our hire-out rates are still 20 to 30 per cent less than unorganised players,” he added.
After a pilot project in November last, Farmringg now operates across 2,000 acres in five mandals of Siddipet district. “Our objective is to touch 10,000 acres in 200 villages by the next season and the indicators, as in the interest shown by people, are promising,” Mr. Reddy said.
The initial introductions on the ground were provided by ICRISAT, following which the pilot was taken up last year and the current season all through June was proof of the pudding, the co-founders said. “Last November on, when we got appreciation along with invitations to attend weddings, we got confidence to carry on the journey and prepare for the June season,” he summed up.
Thus, ‘Farming as a Service (FAAS) from Farmringg is just a call away. Go ahead, call 96762-66399 or 81428-93959 to hire equipment per hour or give out your equipment to the aggregator.