This 15-year-old Co-founder is building in-house tech for an agtech satellite imagery data analytics company, serving the precision farming and risk mitigation needs of the Indian farmer.
With more than 40% of India’s workforce employed in agriculture, farmers have been facing heavy debt for decades now, after they borrow heavily for seeds, equipment, etc. Natural disasters like floods devastate crop yields, leading to farmer suicides. The state of Kerala has seen as many as 25 suicides since 2016.
Last year, the country saw agitations in Delhi, as farmers from Punjab opposed the Centre’s farm laws. Professor Sukhpal Singh, principal economist, Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Ludhiana told The Indian Express that 89% farmers in Punjab are under debt.
GreenSat Innovation Labs, an agri-tech satellite imagery data analytics company is serving the precision farming and risk mitigation needs of farmers. And one of their Co-Founders is still in 10th grade.
The Tech Panda spoke to Aarush Yadav, the 15-year old Co-founder of GreenSat, who is juggling studies and entrepreneurship admirably.
Aarush Yadav
Our focus at GreenSat is to solve problems in the agricultural chain using innovative technology. We strive to use cutting-edge technology and unique inventions
“The main problems faced by farmers are related to growing, borrowing, insuring, and selling. At GreenSat, we aim to solve all these problems using innovative technology solutions,” he says.
The startup began amid the first lockdown. Yadav’s father worked in agri-exports and was communicating with farmers every day and understood their issues. One day, while father and son discussed and researched, they came up with the idea of using satellite imagery to solve the problem.
“I, being from a tech background, also immediately realized that we would have to use Artificial Intelligence to make use of satellite data properly. Over the next few months, we brainstormed and developed the initial version of the app, and that’s how everything began,” says the boy who started coding when he was in fourth grade.
Yadav manages both studies and entrepreneurship admirably.
“It is difficult to manage both my studies and entrepreneurship together, but I am passionate about both, so I find a way. The time I dedicate to GreenSat can vary considerably, sometimes being nearly nothing when there is not a lot of work, to the entire day (usually on weekends). Because of this, I can usually find time for my studies and make sure that I don’t lag there,” he adds.
Explaining the pain points in the agri sector, Yadav says that the borrowing stage is the first step when a farmer wishes to grow a crop, wherein, they must seek an agricultural loan from an appropriate bank to finance their farming operations.
“This often involves standing in long queues at bank branches and multiple painful stages of bureaucracy,” says Yadav.
At the next stage, called the growing stage, several problems can occur such as improper management leading to crop failure or bad quality output. In some cases, lack of information about upcoming natural calamities can lead to complete devastation of the yield and huge losses.
“Such disastrous outcomes in the growing stage can put the farmer into heavy debt. Inability to pay back the loan and crushing financial burden sometimes leads to farmer suicides,” he adds.
But, even if the farmer’s crop makes it past the growing stage in perfect condition, price instability and weak market linkages might mean that a farmer cannot sell their products at the price which they expected or might not even be able to sell their crop at all.
GreenSat solutions are aimed at meeting needs of other entities in the agricultural chain, including banks, insurers, and buyers.
“Our solutions also ensure that the aims of these entities are met. Firstly, buyers would always like to have consistent quality of crop as well as consistent pricing. Currently, the government often enforces a Minimum Support Price (MSP) at which even poor-quality products can be sold by farmers. While this is beneficial for farmers whose crop failed, it is unfair to those who worked hard for a good crop,” he explains.
“Secondly, banks would like timely monitoring of a farmer’s crop and the loan granted. Lastly, insurers would like to have a deterministic method of examining agricultural insurance claims, such as pest attacks to prevent any kind of fraud. We aim to address all these issues,” he adds.
The first step in GreenSat’s long journey to build a complete solution was to reduce the risks that farmers face during the growing stage. So, they started by building accessible and user-friendly precision-farming tools that were all built around satellite imagery and, by extension, weather forecasts.
This product involves accurate 15-day weather forecasts, timely weather alerts, crop health monitoring, chatting with agri-experts, exploring our knowledge base, managing day-to-day finances and much more
“This product involves accurate 15-day weather forecasts, timely weather alerts, crop health monitoring, chatting with agri-experts, exploring our knowledge base, managing day-to-day finances and much more. These features can all be grouped into four main buckets: education, monitoring, warning, and management. All these features help a farmer to grow a more productive and safer crop,” says Yadav.
The platform also offers banking products that offer a completely faceless, digital system for loan application and approval. A farmer can simply fill a form on their app with the required details, such as images of the PAN card, Aadhaar card, crop details, etc.
This digital process can speed up approval of loan by many times and provide a more transparent process for banks
By aggregating and adding value to various data such as PAN card details, land certificates, and even past crop analyses of a farmer, a complete loan application for the farmer is automatically created and sent to banks.
“This digital process can speed up approval of loan by many times and provide a more transparent process for banks,” says Yadav.
However, GreenSat also insures a farmer against a failed crop, which can occur even after the granting of a loan.
“To achieve this, we started working on our insurance products wherein a farmer can directly apply for an insurance of his loan portfolio through our app and have his risk mitigated,” Yadav explains.
To further reduce risk of loss to anyone, we also bring in super-insurers that insure the insurance company
The application would be sent to insurance company, which would then collectively insure a group of farmers to reduce their risk.
“To further reduce risk of loss to anyone, we also bring in super-insurers that insure the insurance company,” he adds.
For the super-insurer, the risk of any loss is virtually non-existent, especially when the insurance company insures over a wide geographical area.
Lastly, the startup offers farmers the ability to set up a ‘forward contract’, wherein, they can know with near absolute certainty that their crop will be sold for a certain amount when they harvest it, given that it is of a certain quality.
Even if their crop gets ruined and the crop is not of the expected quality, if the farmer has opted for our insurance product, he will face no losses
“This feature is extremely beneficial as farmers can be sure that they will receive a certain amount of revenue after selling their crop, which would be especially true if they use our precision farming products. Even if their crop gets ruined and the crop is not of the expected quality, if the farmer has opted for our insurance product, he will face no losses. The insurance company will pay the bank on behalf of the farmer,” Yadav explains.
For banks to ensure that money from agricultural loans is not spent for non-agricultural purposes, GreenSat has also devised a digital currency system, wherein a farmer’s loan will not receive any real cash, but rather credits.
“Using credits, a farmer can buy any product at an approved GreenSat vendor, but this is not real money, so it cannot be used to buy anything else,” he adds.
For its cashless credit line system, the platform uses blockchain technology to build a secure and effective transactions system through which payments can be made. It’s also using AI solutions in multiple places, such as for OCR from Aadhaar Cards, satellite image rectification and classification, and weather forecasts.
“Our focus at GreenSat is to solve problems in the agricultural chain using innovative technology. We strive to use cutting-edge technology and unique inventions,” says Yadav passionately.
GreenSat has successfully acquired a user base of over 10, 000 farmers on their own, and through partnerships, are hoping to onboard many times that in the upcoming months.
“Having partnered with companies like KRIBHCO, who will help us onboard its crores of farmers, we have secured relations within the industry and gained a stronger foothold. We have also partnered with aggregators in our crop sale segment and have a successful contract farming project,” says Yadav.
One of the company’s biggest focus points right now is expanding their user base.
“We hope to onboard many tens of thousands of farmers in the upcoming months and provide our services to them,” says the young Co-founder.
The startup is also hoping to launch its insurance and crop sale products very shortly as well as expand its market linkages further.
“Finally, as we have always, we hope to come up with many more innovations and new applications of technology in the future,” Yadav concludes.
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