Salam Kisan to manufacture drones, enters into MoUs to buy 3 lakh tonnes of chana

Salam Kisan, one India’s fast-growing data-driven end-to-end agriculture start-up platforms, has ambitious plans to expand its operations over the next six to 12 months.

According to the company’s  founder and CEO Dhanashree Mandhani, this includes entering into agreements with 40 farmers producer organisations (FPOs) to procure 3 lakh tonnes chana (gram) with the firm controlling the entire production chain from sowing to harvest.

Amongst its other plans are to expand further in Maharashtra before spreading its wings in Gujarat Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, export more horticultural products, launch financial services to help provide access to funds for farmers and manufacturing drones by November-end, she told businessline in an online interaction.

 Dhanashree Mandhani, Founder and CEO, Salam Kisan

For own use

“We are getting into manufacturing drones as a vertical of the company.  It is going to be a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of Prym Solutions or  it is going to be in Prym solutions. The work has started and you can expect to see our first drone by the end of November,” Mandhani said.

The drones will initially be manufactured for its own use. They will have all special features related to the “on ground issues” the company has faced while using drones of other manufacturers. 

“So the flight time, the payload and such sort of stuff will be the features. Most drones in the market do not give a high flight time per acre if I speak about the operational challenges while operating a drone,” she said. 

Salam Kisan’s drones would have higher flight time. “Usually one battery only gives seven minutes. So the pilot has to bring the drone down, change water, battery and then fly it again. This happens too many times. Imagine a land parcel of say 100 acres!” the company’s founder and CEO said.

Fleet management, support system

The company’s drones would have a bigger 30 litres tank (against 20 litres provided by most drones) and it is working on small and medium category drones with different payloads, increased flight times, higher stability and more endurance. 

Salam Kisan, which is a year-and-a-half old, will also opt for a fleet management software for managing the drones, something that no manufacturer currently provides, Mandhani said.

Besides, service back-up will be provided with ground support systems that will include mechanics and technicians. “People are not able to provide service for repairing drones for almost 20-25 days. I myself faced issues where 6-8 of my drones just crashed and were down for 25 days in peak season time,” she said, adding this will decrease the “downtime” of the drones to less than two days. 

Mumbai-based Salam Kisaan, essentially a tech-enabled platform providing data driven insights and end-to-end solutions as well as services in the entire agricultural value chain to farmers, works with 27,000 farmers in 15-20 districts in Maharashtra. 

Output market linkage

From the current rabi season, Salam Kisan will enter “output market linkage” and procure three lakh tonnes of chana by working with FPOs with farmers needing to work with the company from sowing to harvest. 

To begin with, the linkage will begin in Maharashtra’s Akola, Beed and Buldhana districts. “We have signed MoUs with the FPOs where we tell them from land preparation to harvest to post-harvest what to do. We give them a prediction of the yield and everything will be done through automated application and not manually. Once harvested, we will buy back the produce,” Mandhani said. 

Salam Kisan, which works with 27,000 farmers in 15-20 districts in Maharashtra, is expanding in western Maharashtra. The company has selected a couple of districts in the State to launch all of its services there.

Next financial year, the company plans to expand to neighbouring districts and States such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, said the founder and CEO of the company, which  works on precision agriculture through use of drones and AI-enabled soil testing. 

Full stack agri platform

One of Salam Kisan’s major services is input market linkage and the company has a dealer network of about 300 dealers across 20 districts. “What we do is we have an integrated calendar data. This includes historical data and weather related forecasts that help with predicting the entire crop cycle. We use all of this information and then recommend products, including chemical compositions, and best practices,” she said. 

This is a sort of hybrid model where the activities mainly take place on the digital app. “We are trying to promote digital digitisation or farming. But you need to have people on ground who can assist farmers,” said Mandhani, adding the firm has 80 people across these 20 districts for customer support and service. 

Salam Kisan is a full-stack agricultural platform aggregating the entire value chain. The digital app is easy to use and farmer-friendly, she said. 

Drone services

Salam Kisan, which has tied up with a couple of universities, is currently operating with 80 drones that have sprayed on over 15,000 hectares across 67 crops. The bootstrapped firm fully owns the drones.

The company provides drones as a service for fertilizers, pesticide and nutrient spraying. It plans to expand to seed spraying and land mapping as well with drones, used primarily in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions.

In the case of drones, it has held the company reach out to spots on a soyabean farm in Wardha district where people could not go in due to flooding. “We were able to save crops by using drones for pest management,” Mandhani said.  

Salam Kisan suggests an entire package of practice starting from pre-sowing, using AI-enable soil test results, utilising recommended products and then making use of drones for spraying.  

“We have noticed a 20-25 per cent increase in yield, when farmers follow the entire package of practice we suggest,” said Mandhani.

Export plans

Initially, the company had to work hard to convince farmers, make them aware and educate them as they lived in remote areas. “In these regions, it starts with that transformation in the mentality and psyche of the consumer or a farmer. So, the first 6-8 months was a huge conversion period for us,” she said.

Salam Kisan is looking at exports from western Maharashtra. It also plans to ship horticulture produce from Marathwada. Exports is another vertical of the company and its expansion is in the pipeline.

Over the past couple of months, the company has exported a couple of containers. “It has been mostly spices. We are now planning to export horticultural produce such as mangoes, pomegranate, custard apple, strawberries and such stuff,” she said. 

 “One of the other things that we are going to pick up in the next couple of months is financial services,” the company’s founder and CEO said. 

As the company is working with individual farmers, besides business-to-business firms and FPOs, it has a lot of data that will help banks offer loans to growers. 

“This will make the process easier for banks. So we are creating soft credit histories and are working on this model. We’re going to work with a couple of other banks as well by helping them with document collection,” Mandhani said.

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