Pallavi Shigwan

Cash Flow (or lack thereof) in the Indian Seed & Crop Protection Channel (Part-2: Plausible Solutions) We talked about the root cause of the cash flow crisis in the Indian agri input channel as being a farmer debt trap escalating backwards in the channel. There could be several plausible solutions one could think of: 1. Creating a "risk-taking" product: I sold Roundup in a market where we had over 70% market share (could have been one of the highest market share territories for Roundup). This meant that distributors and dealers could afford taking risks and betting on the product getting sold. It's a bit tricky in seed value chains, but creating a product and a brand that everyone in the channel would bet on to succeed could be a great advantage to unclog the cash flow channel. 2. Innovative Financial Products: Trade finance and trade insurance products already exist in the market. These could be great products for banks to cater to priority sector financing as well. Scaling up of Warehouse Receipt Financing and other innovations (especially digitally enabled) could boost the cash flow. 3. Farmer Producer Companies: Many FPCs have started engaging in input distribution and retailing. Traditionally, fertilizer co-operatives have shown decent success and there is a scale-up happening on the FPC front, which shows great promise. Companies should be open to exploring the FPC channel to boost their sales and cash flows. 4. Connecting the farm produce to inputs: The gross margins of the Indian farmer can put some FMCG companies to shame!! In conclusion of points 2 and 3 above, the entire ecosystem needs to innovate around how to convert this gross margin at farmer level to cash in the system through targeted incentives. I'm sure there are several innovations already happening and I am certain that I am not the only person thinking of solving this. conundrum. By the way, wishing everyone a successful Kharif season!! #crop #indianagriculture #agriculture #agriinput #farmer

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My dear Young Agripreneurs, Please don't experiment to fail.Learn from the mistakes of others and start a fail proof entrepreneurship. Start ups in Agriculture space should study deeper to mitigate unforeseen risks to scale up to sustainable development #Agripreneurs #Startups #Agritech #Agri_Automation

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