Prof. Nagendhiran Viswanathan, Founder of Suregrow is based out of Coimbatore. He is an automation engineer who has experimented with the possibilities of agriculture infused with automation. In the process he has journeyed through hydroponics, aeroponics and all the versions of farming without soil.
Team Suregrow has built around 70 commercial farms in India, predominantly vertical farms. Most of them are farms which do not employ soil. In the last one year, they have started building soil-based organic computerised vertical farms as well.
The vegetable crops tried are broccoli, mint, capsicum, cucumber, green peas, basil, amaranthus, palak, lettuce and microgreens.
Besides vegetables, they have tried their hand at strawberries and marigold as well.
“I am not consigned to farming without soil, alone. I do soil-based farming as well. Our realm of work involves computerised soil-based farming as well. With my hands-on experience in automation I believed I could effectively contribute to the agricultural sector.
The scope of automation is more in farming without soil compared to soil-based farming. That is why I stepped into hydroponics and aeroponics initially. Later on, we developed ‘finite volume soil-based farming’. It is the same as conventional organic farming but in conventional farming you deal with an infinite volume of soil. Quite a lot of problems associated with the current farming is because of this factor. So, like in hydroponics or aeroponics, we cultivate with limited amount of soil collected in containers - we do it in pipes. The finite volume of soil gives us a lot of control over it and things get very easy. One can manually control the farm or it can be computerised.”
Organic Vs Inorganic
If you are not aware, farming done inside a polyhouse does not qualify for an organic certificate. Although Suregrow does not employ any chemicals, since the farming is done in a poly house, the produce doesn’t qualify for an organic certification from an Indian perspective.
There are other countries which accept farming in poly houses to be organic. So, that perspective varies from country to country. So, by way of certification the produce is not organic but positively one can have total control of avoiding any chemical usage whatsoever.
Can you shed some light on the cost vs. profit aspect?
This is a very conscious evolution for us. My research started off in 2007, when I was working as a teacher and we started off commercially in 2012.
We came to realize that technology-driven farming in India did not take off in a big way because of the costs. We are a developing country and most importantly vegetable prices are the lowest compared to any other country. That posed a challenge. We realised that if are going to venture into technology driven farming, the infrastructure cost should be one that is viable in India. That was our challenge.
Our effort to minimize costs drove us to a complete indigenous development of our products. Over a period of time we were successful in getting everything done inhouse - right from the software to electronic hardware, poly house fabrication to the plant growing system fabrication. We are very proud about this.
We are perhaps the only company which have end to end expertise in doing these things. In the process:
Cost advantage: We can deliver at the cost that other operators in this field cannot imagine.
After-support for our clients: Anytime our clients need software upgrade or tweak in hardware etc. we offer direct support. Our support extends in the long run as well.
Please share some more inputs related to using computer automation in agriculture.
Let us break it up into 2 based on agricultural activities:
The common manual tasks: Tasks like irrigation, fertilization, weeding, pest and disease management, etc. can be automated by slight modification and integration of computerization.
The parameters: This is something most people do not go to the extent of correcting, but when corrected you stand to get magical results. The different parameters are:
Monitoring moisture in the soil: Excess moisture in the soil creates as much trouble as soil dryness. A simple and low cost automation ensures the plant with moisture in the desired amount.
pH level of the soil: Soil is heterogeneous and the soil properties vary from one place to the other. Each crop requires a particular pH factor. The soil’s pH can be monitored and corrected using computerization.
Once you maintain the right pH and nutrient composition etc. in the soil, the quality of the produce goes up.
Yield of the farm goes high.
The parameter details go a long way in easing and giving precision to agricultural practices and makes things robust. The biggest problem that people face is the reliability of the crop. Very often they face crop failures. Once the parameters are right, the robustness of the crop improves and hence its quality.
When we are given a patch of farm, we can probe the soil in multiple places and we can find out the amount of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium etc. This concept is spilled over from hydroponics and aeroponics where we use these individual nutrients so that we maintain ideal conditions for the plant to thrive throughout its lifetime. The same technology can be extended to conventional farming as well. Conventional farming can be tweaked a little bit to make it finite volume soil farming. It gives the same results as hydroponics and aeroponics.
Do you use seaweed extracts as a nutrient in hydroponics?
Seaweed extract is being used in different ways. We get something called enriched media, which is pegged between hydroponics and finite volume soil based farming.
To make it simple, if you use coir pith for growing the plants, it is neutral media and water soluble fertilizers are mixed in water to grow the plants.
Instead of plain coir pith, we also have enriched media where seaweed compost is also one of the ingredients that is used along with other ingredients like bone meal, etc. Use of enriched media for growing the plants gives great results. Having said that, this enriched media tends to exhaust as the plant grows.
We have set up a farm around 3 hours from Coimbatore, where there is a vermi-composting unit. We extract vermi-wash from the vermi-composting unit. The vermi-wash is then sterilized and mixed with useful bacteria like nitrogen fixing bacteria. We use this liquid to replenish the enriched media. These give great results. The catch - it costs 3 times that of neutral media.
That is where we adopted soil, which costs lower than enriched media. We enriched the soil with manure, etc. and we used the vermin-wash process the same way we did for enrich media and this also gave amazing results. In addition to that, we have another gentleman based in Chennai and Kolkata, who supplies us with certified organic nutrients. He uses seaweed as well in his nutrient pack.
How are you planning on expanding this business?
I was not really focused on developing the business. I have been running the business based on word of mouth advertising. Having said that, it has been good. We have had the highest number of farms installed in India with no conscious effort towards developing the business part of it. We have been more focused on making the technology more adaptable to this part of the world. That is what has been happening so far.
Our confidence level has shot up and I believe we are geared to deliver very powerful projects. I have faith that once we have a strong technology base the business part will automatically be taken care of.
Who are your clients?
We have clients across India. Like I mentioned earlier, we have 70 farms installed across India. We also work in Sri Lanka and Malaysia - we have a few farms there as well. We have some current projects going on in Malaysia as well and another one is about to commence in Sri Lanka.
Technology driven farming in Malaysia and Sri Lanka are totally different from that in India just because of the vegetable prices. I have seen cauliflower getting sold there at 10 times the rate at which it is sold in India. This very aspect changes the whole project viability; I get the freedom to employ quite a lot of technology there. But here, I have to restrain myself from doing quite a few things.
Any thoughts on farming under lights?
Very often people come to me asking for farming under lights. We have a very successful working model using which we can grow plants under lights. But, I would warn people that it may not be a viable idea in an Indian scenario.
To quote an example, we did a farm in Lucknow. It was a 2000 sq. ft ultra-high density vertical farm. We provided them with 14200 planting slots for growing exotic vegetables and it was completely climate controlled and it was under lights.
I had to provide 2W lighting per plant. So, for just a 2000 sq. ft farm, I had to give 28400 W lighting, which had to be working for 18 hours a day.
In terms of natural light, plants need 6 hours of natural sunlight. Under artificial lighting, it would require 18 hours of exposure. That translates to 28.4 units of electricity consumed per hour. That is 511.2 units consumed for 18 hours for just 2000 sq. ft installation per day. This is only for the lights. We have other machines in play.
This is stretching the technology just for the wonder factor of it all. It may not be a pragmatic solution in India. We have to keep our restraint and keep things simple so that we get into a sustainable and viable model.
We understand that you associate a lot with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU)
There are very interesting things happening. We supply vertical farming equipment to TNAU using which students get to learn. From the automation and other technology point of view I deliver guest lectures at TNAU. We get a treasure of information from TNAU.
We have an inhouse horticulturist, Anita who happens to be from TNAU. She has done her PhD in Floriculture but she is a hands on person and has her own vertical farm and hence has a plethora of experience.
Once we do the engineering part for our clients, we hand over the farm to Ms Anita and she takes over. She then hand holds our customers until harvest.
We don't charge clients for our consultancy and even the first client who connected with us way back in 2012, still consults us.
Initially, we used to walk off after building the infrastructure assuming that the client will be able to take care of the rest. From our initial discussions with our clients, we assumed that they know farming so all that we need to do for them is build the infrastructure and explain how things are done. But, later we realised that things weren't that easy and that people needed hand holding. That is when we hired an inhouse horticulturist.
Now, our consultancy starts at the point where we help the client choose the right project. We have come to realise that a project that is suitable for x may not be suitable for y. We need to look at how they would market as well and their potential. Looking at all aspects, we counsel them about the right project and right size for them to start with.
After finalization of the project, we begin with the turn key construction of the project. Once that is done, we hand hold them until harvest. This could be for multiple crops or multiple cycles of crops as well. Only then will the whole exercise be comprehensive and successful.
In fact, if it is a large project, we can virtually run the project for them by appointing qualified people. They just need to give us the space and invest on the infrastructure, we are open to running a farm on a profit sharing basis.
You get subsidies or any kind of financial support?
No. We don’t get any subsidies owing to certain complications.
Predominantly, we do vertical farms. Vertical farms come with vertical poly houses. The specifications that government gives for poly house cultivation, currently does not include vertical poly house specification. Hence, at present, vertical poly houses don't qualify for subsidies.
Banks give loans only upon recommendation from the local Horticulture Board. So, right now, we do not have loan or subsidy support. We have supplied the system to Agricultural University hoping that something will happen.
What material do you use for the pipes in your farms?
When we go soil based, I prefer to go with food grade material. UPVC pipes qualify to be food grade material and PVC does not. Also, we need to get virgin UPVC pipes.
In the farms we build, the choice of food grade material not only stops at the pipes but it extends to the pumps, the valves, the irrigation system, the plumbing system, tank, storage tank, etc.
If we want a complete organic system then right up to the last washer, it should be food grade material. That is how we build the finite soil based farms.
Which organization certifies UPVC as food grade material?
UPVC is generally food grade material, by nature. The thing is we need to have an ISI certification so that we are sure the company uses virgin material and he does not mix it up with others.
So, the company who supplies the material needs to process a certification.
Should we have broadband internet connection or could we store results and monitor them real time?
In terms of internet connectivity, most of the commercial projects, for remote areas where we don't have proper internet connectivity, we ensure that the system is IoT ready.
If we have an internet connection, things get better for us because we can control the farm from our place. I can even modify the software which is running in your system from wherever I am. So, that gets our control on your farm.
In cases where there is no internet connectivity, the system connects over the GSM/SMS network. In that case, we can monitor only the parameters. We can't program the system and at times even if the client misses out on an exception raised by the system, we have a server here which tracks all the messages form the systems and we might call the client or in risky situations we may send someone on the farm and set things right.
Do you cultivate fruits and flowers?
The only fruit we do is strawberry and the only flower we have tried out is marigold.
The business is growing and hence the time spent on research is going down. For us to validate a crop on our systems, it takes at least 6-8 months. That part is a real time process. That is why we cannot add any crops at a fast rate.
Do you plan on trying field crops like cereals?
No, not right now. We are looking at roses and some other ornamental flowers. Our focus will remain on vegetables.
Anything else that you would like to share before we wrap up?
I’d like to share an incident.
There was this prospective client who contacted me from Vishakapatanam. It was a lady who was in the construction business who wanted me to check a quote from a company for technology driven farming for 3000 sq. ft space. The company had quoted Rs. 80 lakh for just a 3000 sq. ft installation. At that rate, the project would definitely not be viable no matter what a client can afford. We did our Math and realised that we could do the same thing for them at Rs. 15 lakh.
So, some people do try taking advantage of the hype so people need to be aware.
I prefer to keep things very simple. Our farms may not be cosmetically very appealing. But, in terms of productivity I believe we are the best.
Thank you very much for this conversation today, Prof. Nagendhiran. It is great to see people like you streaming into the agricultural sector. It gives great hope. With over 10-15 start ups cropping up every day with enthusiasts such as you, the Horticulture department needs to play a role in ensuring financial support as well. The day will dawn. We wish you all success.
Contact
Nagendhiran Viswanathan
Company 'SureGrow'
Street 50A/1, Mariamman Kovil Street
City Coimbatore
Zip Code 641007
State Tamil Nadu
Phone-+91 9585286005
Email: suregrowfarm@gmail.com
Team Suregrow has built around 70 commercial farms in India, predominantly vertical farms. Most of them are farms which do not employ soil. In the last one year, they have started building soil-based organic computerised vertical farms as well.
The vegetable crops tried are broccoli, mint, capsicum, cucumber, green peas, basil, amaranthus, palak, lettuce and microgreens.
Besides vegetables, they have tried their hand at strawberries and marigold as well.
“I am not consigned to farming without soil, alone. I do soil-based farming as well. Our realm of work involves computerised soil-based farming as well. With my hands-on experience in automation I believed I could effectively contribute to the agricultural sector.
The scope of automation is more in farming without soil compared to soil-based farming. That is why I stepped into hydroponics and aeroponics initially. Later on, we developed ‘finite volume soil-based farming’. It is the same as conventional organic farming but in conventional farming you deal with an infinite volume of soil. Quite a lot of problems associated with the current farming is because of this factor. So, like in hydroponics or aeroponics, we cultivate with limited amount of soil collected in containers - we do it in pipes. The finite volume of soil gives us a lot of control over it and things get very easy. One can manually control the farm or it can be computerised.”
Organic Vs Inorganic
If you are not aware, farming done inside a polyhouse does not qualify for an organic certificate. Although Suregrow does not employ any chemicals, since the farming is done in a poly house, the produce doesn’t qualify for an organic certification from an Indian perspective.
There are other countries which accept farming in poly houses to be organic. So, that perspective varies from country to country. So, by way of certification the produce is not organic but positively one can have total control of avoiding any chemical usage whatsoever.
Can you shed some light on the cost vs. profit aspect?
This is a very conscious evolution for us. My research started off in 2007, when I was working as a teacher and we started off commercially in 2012.
We came to realize that technology-driven farming in India did not take off in a big way because of the costs. We are a developing country and most importantly vegetable prices are the lowest compared to any other country. That posed a challenge. We realised that if are going to venture into technology driven farming, the infrastructure cost should be one that is viable in India. That was our challenge.
Our effort to minimize costs drove us to a complete indigenous development of our products. Over a period of time we were successful in getting everything done inhouse - right from the software to electronic hardware, poly house fabrication to the plant growing system fabrication. We are very proud about this.
We are perhaps the only company which have end to end expertise in doing these things. In the process:
Cost advantage: We can deliver at the cost that other operators in this field cannot imagine.
After-support for our clients: Anytime our clients need software upgrade or tweak in hardware etc. we offer direct support. Our support extends in the long run as well.
Please share some more inputs related to using computer automation in agriculture.
Let us break it up into 2 based on agricultural activities:
The common manual tasks: Tasks like irrigation, fertilization, weeding, pest and disease management, etc. can be automated by slight modification and integration of computerization.
The parameters: This is something most people do not go to the extent of correcting, but when corrected you stand to get magical results. The different parameters are:
Monitoring moisture in the soil: Excess moisture in the soil creates as much trouble as soil dryness. A simple and low cost automation ensures the plant with moisture in the desired amount.
pH level of the soil: Soil is heterogeneous and the soil properties vary from one place to the other. Each crop requires a particular pH factor. The soil’s pH can be monitored and corrected using computerization.
Once you maintain the right pH and nutrient composition etc. in the soil, the quality of the produce goes up.
Yield of the farm goes high.
The parameter details go a long way in easing and giving precision to agricultural practices and makes things robust. The biggest problem that people face is the reliability of the crop. Very often they face crop failures. Once the parameters are right, the robustness of the crop improves and hence its quality.
When we are given a patch of farm, we can probe the soil in multiple places and we can find out the amount of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium etc. This concept is spilled over from hydroponics and aeroponics where we use these individual nutrients so that we maintain ideal conditions for the plant to thrive throughout its lifetime. The same technology can be extended to conventional farming as well. Conventional farming can be tweaked a little bit to make it finite volume soil farming. It gives the same results as hydroponics and aeroponics.
Do you use seaweed extracts as a nutrient in hydroponics?
Seaweed extract is being used in different ways. We get something called enriched media, which is pegged between hydroponics and finite volume soil based farming.
To make it simple, if you use coir pith for growing the plants, it is neutral media and water soluble fertilizers are mixed in water to grow the plants.
Instead of plain coir pith, we also have enriched media where seaweed compost is also one of the ingredients that is used along with other ingredients like bone meal, etc. Use of enriched media for growing the plants gives great results. Having said that, this enriched media tends to exhaust as the plant grows.
We have set up a farm around 3 hours from Coimbatore, where there is a vermi-composting unit. We extract vermi-wash from the vermi-composting unit. The vermi-wash is then sterilized and mixed with useful bacteria like nitrogen fixing bacteria. We use this liquid to replenish the enriched media. These give great results. The catch - it costs 3 times that of neutral media.
That is where we adopted soil, which costs lower than enriched media. We enriched the soil with manure, etc. and we used the vermin-wash process the same way we did for enrich media and this also gave amazing results. In addition to that, we have another gentleman based in Chennai and Kolkata, who supplies us with certified organic nutrients. He uses seaweed as well in his nutrient pack.
How are you planning on expanding this business?
I was not really focused on developing the business. I have been running the business based on word of mouth advertising. Having said that, it has been good. We have had the highest number of farms installed in India with no conscious effort towards developing the business part of it. We have been more focused on making the technology more adaptable to this part of the world. That is what has been happening so far.
Our confidence level has shot up and I believe we are geared to deliver very powerful projects. I have faith that once we have a strong technology base the business part will automatically be taken care of.
Who are your clients?
We have clients across India. Like I mentioned earlier, we have 70 farms installed across India. We also work in Sri Lanka and Malaysia - we have a few farms there as well. We have some current projects going on in Malaysia as well and another one is about to commence in Sri Lanka.
Technology driven farming in Malaysia and Sri Lanka are totally different from that in India just because of the vegetable prices. I have seen cauliflower getting sold there at 10 times the rate at which it is sold in India. This very aspect changes the whole project viability; I get the freedom to employ quite a lot of technology there. But here, I have to restrain myself from doing quite a few things.
Any thoughts on farming under lights?
Very often people come to me asking for farming under lights. We have a very successful working model using which we can grow plants under lights. But, I would warn people that it may not be a viable idea in an Indian scenario.
To quote an example, we did a farm in Lucknow. It was a 2000 sq. ft ultra-high density vertical farm. We provided them with 14200 planting slots for growing exotic vegetables and it was completely climate controlled and it was under lights.
I had to provide 2W lighting per plant. So, for just a 2000 sq. ft farm, I had to give 28400 W lighting, which had to be working for 18 hours a day.
In terms of natural light, plants need 6 hours of natural sunlight. Under artificial lighting, it would require 18 hours of exposure. That translates to 28.4 units of electricity consumed per hour. That is 511.2 units consumed for 18 hours for just 2000 sq. ft installation per day. This is only for the lights. We have other machines in play.
This is stretching the technology just for the wonder factor of it all. It may not be a pragmatic solution in India. We have to keep our restraint and keep things simple so that we get into a sustainable and viable model.
We understand that you associate a lot with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU)
There are very interesting things happening. We supply vertical farming equipment to TNAU using which students get to learn. From the automation and other technology point of view I deliver guest lectures at TNAU. We get a treasure of information from TNAU.
We have an inhouse horticulturist, Anita who happens to be from TNAU. She has done her PhD in Floriculture but she is a hands on person and has her own vertical farm and hence has a plethora of experience.
Once we do the engineering part for our clients, we hand over the farm to Ms Anita and she takes over. She then hand holds our customers until harvest.
We don't charge clients for our consultancy and even the first client who connected with us way back in 2012, still consults us.
Initially, we used to walk off after building the infrastructure assuming that the client will be able to take care of the rest. From our initial discussions with our clients, we assumed that they know farming so all that we need to do for them is build the infrastructure and explain how things are done. But, later we realised that things weren't that easy and that people needed hand holding. That is when we hired an inhouse horticulturist.
Now, our consultancy starts at the point where we help the client choose the right project. We have come to realise that a project that is suitable for x may not be suitable for y. We need to look at how they would market as well and their potential. Looking at all aspects, we counsel them about the right project and right size for them to start with.
After finalization of the project, we begin with the turn key construction of the project. Once that is done, we hand hold them until harvest. This could be for multiple crops or multiple cycles of crops as well. Only then will the whole exercise be comprehensive and successful.
In fact, if it is a large project, we can virtually run the project for them by appointing qualified people. They just need to give us the space and invest on the infrastructure, we are open to running a farm on a profit sharing basis.
You get subsidies or any kind of financial support?
No. We don’t get any subsidies owing to certain complications.
Predominantly, we do vertical farms. Vertical farms come with vertical poly houses. The specifications that government gives for poly house cultivation, currently does not include vertical poly house specification. Hence, at present, vertical poly houses don't qualify for subsidies.
Banks give loans only upon recommendation from the local Horticulture Board. So, right now, we do not have loan or subsidy support. We have supplied the system to Agricultural University hoping that something will happen.
What material do you use for the pipes in your farms?
When we go soil based, I prefer to go with food grade material. UPVC pipes qualify to be food grade material and PVC does not. Also, we need to get virgin UPVC pipes.
In the farms we build, the choice of food grade material not only stops at the pipes but it extends to the pumps, the valves, the irrigation system, the plumbing system, tank, storage tank, etc.
If we want a complete organic system then right up to the last washer, it should be food grade material. That is how we build the finite soil based farms.
Which organization certifies UPVC as food grade material?
UPVC is generally food grade material, by nature. The thing is we need to have an ISI certification so that we are sure the company uses virgin material and he does not mix it up with others.
So, the company who supplies the material needs to process a certification.
Should we have broadband internet connection or could we store results and monitor them real time?
In terms of internet connectivity, most of the commercial projects, for remote areas where we don't have proper internet connectivity, we ensure that the system is IoT ready.
If we have an internet connection, things get better for us because we can control the farm from our place. I can even modify the software which is running in your system from wherever I am. So, that gets our control on your farm.
In cases where there is no internet connectivity, the system connects over the GSM/SMS network. In that case, we can monitor only the parameters. We can't program the system and at times even if the client misses out on an exception raised by the system, we have a server here which tracks all the messages form the systems and we might call the client or in risky situations we may send someone on the farm and set things right.
Do you cultivate fruits and flowers?
The only fruit we do is strawberry and the only flower we have tried out is marigold.
The business is growing and hence the time spent on research is going down. For us to validate a crop on our systems, it takes at least 6-8 months. That part is a real time process. That is why we cannot add any crops at a fast rate.
Do you plan on trying field crops like cereals?
No, not right now. We are looking at roses and some other ornamental flowers. Our focus will remain on vegetables.
Anything else that you would like to share before we wrap up?
I’d like to share an incident.
There was this prospective client who contacted me from Vishakapatanam. It was a lady who was in the construction business who wanted me to check a quote from a company for technology driven farming for 3000 sq. ft space. The company had quoted Rs. 80 lakh for just a 3000 sq. ft installation. At that rate, the project would definitely not be viable no matter what a client can afford. We did our Math and realised that we could do the same thing for them at Rs. 15 lakh.
So, some people do try taking advantage of the hype so people need to be aware.
I prefer to keep things very simple. Our farms may not be cosmetically very appealing. But, in terms of productivity I believe we are the best.
Thank you very much for this conversation today, Prof. Nagendhiran. It is great to see people like you streaming into the agricultural sector. It gives great hope. With over 10-15 start ups cropping up every day with enthusiasts such as you, the Horticulture department needs to play a role in ensuring financial support as well. The day will dawn. We wish you all success.
Contact
Nagendhiran Viswanathan
Company 'SureGrow'
Street 50A/1, Mariamman Kovil Street
City Coimbatore
Zip Code 641007
State Tamil Nadu
Phone-+91 9585286005
Email: suregrowfarm@gmail.com
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