help farmers earn more

In 2019, Shivraj Nishad from Shekhpur village in Kanpur left his job to start a small-scale business cultivating, harvesting, and dehydrating local flowers such as butterfly pea, rose, hibiscus, marigold, tulsi, jasmine, and chamomile. Utilising solar dryers, he expanded his venture, employing over 100 farmers and offering 15 varieties of dried flowers.

Prabhat Kumar runs SumArth, an NGO that has impacted the lives of 25,000 farmers in 500 villages of Bihar by helping them switch from outdated agricultural practices to new cash crops like onions.

When rubber farming became unprofitable due to cheap imports, Biju Narayanan of Kannur, Kerala, shifted to cultivating exotic fruits like rambutan, mangosteen, and pepper. Employing high-density farming and multi-level cropping, he now earns up to Rs 15 lakh per acre.

Yash Dayal Sharma from Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, is on a mission to improve the soil health in Indian farms by creating vermicompost through his venture ‘Fertile Beeghas’.

Indore-based Varun Raheja designed foldable, portable, and scalable solar dryers to help small and marginal farmers derive better income from excess produce, which would otherwise be sold at throwaway prices.