Ninjacart, a B2B fresh produce supply chain firm in partnership with agri-tech platform Kilofarms has started producing residue free vegetables. The partnership has produced first batch of residue-free tomatoes, which has been tested and cleared by Shriram Institute for Industrial Research, Bengaluru.

The batch also meets the 2013-14 Nabard testing list criteria in order to be safely tagged as residue-free consumable produce, Ninjacart said in a statement.

By February 2021, the Ninjacart-Kilofarms partnership plans to cultivate eight more residue-free crops including muskmelon, watermelon, chillies, potatoes, ridge gourd, ladies finger and 18 more crops by mid of next year.

“Ninjacart’s ambition since inception has been to ensure safe food for all, and with the introduction of our first residue-free produce we’ve come closer to that dream. Combining our knowledge of the supply chain ecosystem with their technology prowess, we will continue to stay steadfast in our goal and expand these methods to even more crops by next summer,” Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Co-founder and CEO, Ninjacart.

Tapping tech

Ninjacart and Kilofarms have leveraged each other’s strengths to devise tech-enabled methods such as automated drip irrigation to assist farmers in achieving the finest grade of fresh produce through residue-free methods.

This technology will help farmers with moisture sensors that give a predictive estimate of the water content of the soil as it influences the yield of the crop. It helps reduce the amount of water used in the field by telling the farmers which part of the field has less water, thereby bringing more efficiency to the entire process with minimal wastage.

This entire system is controlled through an app wherein farmers can look after 30 to 40 acres of land in a single day, without having to spend the entire day in the field. Moreover, the production cost of this new method is almost at par with the conventional style of farming, where there is only a slight variation of ₹1 per kg more, in average production cost in residue-free farming.