Meet Dr.Venkat Maroju, Chief Executive Officer, SourceTrace. Under his leadership, SourceTrace transformed to becoming a global leader in providing software solutions to agriculture and allied sectors. The use of these technological solutions has made the agriculture value chain more sustainable, transparent and equitable - thus empowering hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers in developing countries.
After securing his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Osmania University College of Engineering, Hyderabad, Venkat did his Masters at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He then secured an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management before completing his Ph.D. from the Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. He was a Sloan Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr Venkat, please give us a brief introduction about yourself and your company.
SourceTrace is a company that is revolutionizing the agriculture value chain through data-driven digital innovations. So far we have impacted more than a million farmers in 28 countries in 3 continents. Almost 60 per cent of our customers are in Africa, 20 per cent in India, and the remaining in Asia and Latin America. We engage with farmers through aggregators like farmer producer organisations and farmer cooperatives, govt. and development agencies and agribusinesses that work with a large number of farmers. On an average, these farmers own about 2 hectares of land and are mostly illiterate or semi-literate, and yet they’re intelligent and highly skilled. Agriculture is plagued with several problems like lack of quality inputs, lack of access to credit, lack of timely information and knowledge about weather, market prices and pest & disease and finally lack of good market linkage. All these factors make agriculture unviable for many farmers and they are struggling to make it profitable. SourceTrace aims at providing software solutions to solve these problems by empowering them with timely information for all the stakeholders in the value chain. The first step is to digitize the farmer, farm and crop information, after which a host of solutions can be deployed. These range from the basic farm management and farmer advisory services to the more advanced traceability and certifications which enable farmers to sell into premium markets.
Today the awareness about organic farming is building and this awareness has to be made exponential. Would you be able to do something from your side in terms of software solutions wherein the farmers can be brought to speed?
You will be happy to know that about 80% of the farmers that we support in India are growing organic produce. We are supporting nearly 120,000 organic cotton farmers in India. Initially, the main reason for adoption of organic concept by the cotton industry was to reduce the cost of inputs. Now the organic cotton sector has really matured, and the production of organic cotton has increased. Telangana is one of the important regions with mature organic cotton-producing organizations. They have gradually been able to cut down their input cost to a great extent.
As a software vendor, SourceTrace provides capabilities and tool sets to digitally capture and analyse data. For example, Chetna Organic Producer Company is a farmer-owned company and we help them digitally document everything from loans, inputs, internal inspections for certification, procurement transactions, payments and traceability. Today the brands based in London and New York who purchase cotton bales from Chetna Producer Company are able to trace it all the way back to the farmers who produced it and can also verify the entire crop life cycle including the inputs used and organic certification inspections in addition to the socio-economic status of the farmers. All these tools not only help the farmers grow healthy crops in a sustainable manner, but also ensure a guaranteed and premium market for their produce.
What are the variables in the data that you collect and how do you source this data?
It depends on what kind of application the customer needs. We have a platform called DATAGREEN and we offer a host of solutions: farm management, farmer advisory services, supply chain management, traceability, certification, monitoring & evaluation, market linkage and financial services. Data collected using farm management solution refers to basic details about the farm and farmer. But if pest and disease is a concern, the customer should go for farmer advisory services solution. Similarly, organic certification involves data from internal inspections. All of this data is collected at the ground level. Combined with that, there is also satellite data and weather data which is processed to provide advisory. We have also recently begun to leverage remote sensing technology for certain use cases. Also, the type of data can be very diverse, depending on the context. For example, the data parameters for aquaculture is very different from the typical farm data – it all depends on the requirement.
In India, right now, what are some of the projects that your company is involved in?
We have a number of live projects in India. Some of them are with Chetna Organic Agriculture Producer Company, C&A Foundation and Welspun in the cotton segment. We also work with Haryana Horticulture department, where our solution provides advisory to farmers and also links producer with buyer. We also work with Krishi Pragati Foundation in Maharashtra which produces organic horticultural produce. In this case, a customer can scan the QR code on the packet in the retail store, which fetches them all the information about the origin of the produce, the farmer who grew it and the production processes as well. The Tamilnadu Newsprint and Paper Ltd is another customer that is growing trees on a contract farming basis.
Dr. Venkat, how do you, as a person with such eminence and expertise, see the road map ahead for technology intervention in Indian farming?
Our early years were challenging. It took a lot a time and effort to convince customers and get traction in the marketplace. But now, the adoption rates have picked up. There is not only an increase in the adoption of the technology in agriculture, but it is also becoming affordable to smaller entities and co-operatives, ultimately benefiting the smallholder farmers in many ways including access to financial support and insurance. Regarding the new technology roadmap, we are building the traceability solution in block chain which is scheduled to be released shortly. In my view, the average farmer is not dependent on a smart phone to make decisions. I don't anticipate that in the near future. He cannot make use of that for a 2-hectacre farm. At the same time, the same farmer who owns this 2-hectacre farm has another 100 farmers surrounding him. If they join hands, it will create a critical mass and digital technologies can be leveraged at scale to benefit all of them.
We are also working in remote sensing and leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for farm management and remote monitoring of farmers in order to provide farmers with better advisory and predictability. Another important aspect is the growing need to provide financial services in the agriculture value chain using digital technologies. For example, providing right data and tools to financial institutions can reduce their risk and get them to be more willing to lend. Similarly, crop insurance is also at the very early stage and it can be greatly enhanced by digital technologies. Digital payments to farmers also can expedite the payment process and make it more transparent.
Contact-
Dr. Venkat Maroju,
CEO SourceTrace,
125 Cambridgepark Drive Suite #301,
Cambridge, Massachusetts - 02140,
United States of America.
Email Id : vmaroju@sourcetrace.com
After securing his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Osmania University College of Engineering, Hyderabad, Venkat did his Masters at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He then secured an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management before completing his Ph.D. from the Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. He was a Sloan Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr Venkat, please give us a brief introduction about yourself and your company.
SourceTrace is a company that is revolutionizing the agriculture value chain through data-driven digital innovations. So far we have impacted more than a million farmers in 28 countries in 3 continents. Almost 60 per cent of our customers are in Africa, 20 per cent in India, and the remaining in Asia and Latin America. We engage with farmers through aggregators like farmer producer organisations and farmer cooperatives, govt. and development agencies and agribusinesses that work with a large number of farmers. On an average, these farmers own about 2 hectares of land and are mostly illiterate or semi-literate, and yet they’re intelligent and highly skilled. Agriculture is plagued with several problems like lack of quality inputs, lack of access to credit, lack of timely information and knowledge about weather, market prices and pest & disease and finally lack of good market linkage. All these factors make agriculture unviable for many farmers and they are struggling to make it profitable. SourceTrace aims at providing software solutions to solve these problems by empowering them with timely information for all the stakeholders in the value chain. The first step is to digitize the farmer, farm and crop information, after which a host of solutions can be deployed. These range from the basic farm management and farmer advisory services to the more advanced traceability and certifications which enable farmers to sell into premium markets.
Today the awareness about organic farming is building and this awareness has to be made exponential. Would you be able to do something from your side in terms of software solutions wherein the farmers can be brought to speed?
You will be happy to know that about 80% of the farmers that we support in India are growing organic produce. We are supporting nearly 120,000 organic cotton farmers in India. Initially, the main reason for adoption of organic concept by the cotton industry was to reduce the cost of inputs. Now the organic cotton sector has really matured, and the production of organic cotton has increased. Telangana is one of the important regions with mature organic cotton-producing organizations. They have gradually been able to cut down their input cost to a great extent.
As a software vendor, SourceTrace provides capabilities and tool sets to digitally capture and analyse data. For example, Chetna Organic Producer Company is a farmer-owned company and we help them digitally document everything from loans, inputs, internal inspections for certification, procurement transactions, payments and traceability. Today the brands based in London and New York who purchase cotton bales from Chetna Producer Company are able to trace it all the way back to the farmers who produced it and can also verify the entire crop life cycle including the inputs used and organic certification inspections in addition to the socio-economic status of the farmers. All these tools not only help the farmers grow healthy crops in a sustainable manner, but also ensure a guaranteed and premium market for their produce.
What are the variables in the data that you collect and how do you source this data?
It depends on what kind of application the customer needs. We have a platform called DATAGREEN and we offer a host of solutions: farm management, farmer advisory services, supply chain management, traceability, certification, monitoring & evaluation, market linkage and financial services. Data collected using farm management solution refers to basic details about the farm and farmer. But if pest and disease is a concern, the customer should go for farmer advisory services solution. Similarly, organic certification involves data from internal inspections. All of this data is collected at the ground level. Combined with that, there is also satellite data and weather data which is processed to provide advisory. We have also recently begun to leverage remote sensing technology for certain use cases. Also, the type of data can be very diverse, depending on the context. For example, the data parameters for aquaculture is very different from the typical farm data – it all depends on the requirement.
In India, right now, what are some of the projects that your company is involved in?
We have a number of live projects in India. Some of them are with Chetna Organic Agriculture Producer Company, C&A Foundation and Welspun in the cotton segment. We also work with Haryana Horticulture department, where our solution provides advisory to farmers and also links producer with buyer. We also work with Krishi Pragati Foundation in Maharashtra which produces organic horticultural produce. In this case, a customer can scan the QR code on the packet in the retail store, which fetches them all the information about the origin of the produce, the farmer who grew it and the production processes as well. The Tamilnadu Newsprint and Paper Ltd is another customer that is growing trees on a contract farming basis.
Dr. Venkat, how do you, as a person with such eminence and expertise, see the road map ahead for technology intervention in Indian farming?
Our early years were challenging. It took a lot a time and effort to convince customers and get traction in the marketplace. But now, the adoption rates have picked up. There is not only an increase in the adoption of the technology in agriculture, but it is also becoming affordable to smaller entities and co-operatives, ultimately benefiting the smallholder farmers in many ways including access to financial support and insurance. Regarding the new technology roadmap, we are building the traceability solution in block chain which is scheduled to be released shortly. In my view, the average farmer is not dependent on a smart phone to make decisions. I don't anticipate that in the near future. He cannot make use of that for a 2-hectacre farm. At the same time, the same farmer who owns this 2-hectacre farm has another 100 farmers surrounding him. If they join hands, it will create a critical mass and digital technologies can be leveraged at scale to benefit all of them.
We are also working in remote sensing and leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for farm management and remote monitoring of farmers in order to provide farmers with better advisory and predictability. Another important aspect is the growing need to provide financial services in the agriculture value chain using digital technologies. For example, providing right data and tools to financial institutions can reduce their risk and get them to be more willing to lend. Similarly, crop insurance is also at the very early stage and it can be greatly enhanced by digital technologies. Digital payments to farmers also can expedite the payment process and make it more transparent.
Contact-
Dr. Venkat Maroju,
CEO SourceTrace,
125 Cambridgepark Drive Suite #301,
Cambridge, Massachusetts - 02140,
United States of America.
Email Id : vmaroju@sourcetrace.com