Chandra Dubey, an IITian on a mission to curb ‘farmer suicides’ with Bhushan Agro

Madhya Pradesh is among the Top 5 states contributing to the number of farmer suicides in the country, the others being Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh. And the situation isn’t getting any better; numbers have shown an increase of 50 farmer suicides in 2011compared to 2010. With the situation turning grimmer by the year, any ray of hope is definitely a welcome change.

With a strong intent to change this grim situation, Chandra Dubey, a mechanical engineer from IIT Kharagpur, set out on a mission to improve the situation by starting Bhushan Agro to cultivate using scientific methods of farming on farm lands leased out from poor farmers in Madhya Pradesh.

“I attended the workshop of Mr. Madhavan, the ‘IIT Farmer’ from IIT Madras. I got inspired by what can be achieved. So I decided to read more about him and his work. The scientific methods that he employed have led to the yield and productivity doubled in 2yrs. Much before I heard about Madhavan, I had also been inspired by the first green revolution that led me to attend his workshop,” shares Chandra.

Working on 56 acres of farm land in a village near Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Bhushan Agro is focused on cultivating two to three crops on the farm lands that they have leased out. The business model has been developed to insure the farmer against any unforeseen losses by paying them a guaranteed upfront land rent, assuring him of a definite income. This minimum rent is the profit that the farmer usually makes in a year from his own cultivation. The profit obtained over and above this guaranteed profit by employing the scientific methods shall be shared by Bhushan Agro with the farmer.

The company’s focus being on scientific farming, n-number of tools is required from sowing to harvesting. These tools are available in developed countries. To meet the demand for these tools in India, Bhushan Agro will also develop a few tools through in-house R&D. They will also closely work with Madhavan, the IIT farmer.

With the increasing number of farmers under debt and the consequent suicides, Bhushan Agro is looking to replace financial institutions and also provide them with crop insurance on reaching scale. While there are other companies like Green Tree Foods, INI Farms that are following the leasing model, Bhushan Agro believes in the critical difference that they bring to the table with focus on revenue and profit maximization by maximizing the sustainable yield.

For now, Bhushan Agro is low on marketing apart from their networking efforts with the local people in around Sagar.  The company is saving their best marketing efforts for scaling. But before they get there, they intend to produce good results on the field as proof of the pudding.

Though their initial plan was to just work on 10000 acres in 5-6yrs now, they have now moved their goal to an ambitious figure of 1lakh acres in the next 5-6yrs. They are expanding business to another 5-6 villages in Gujarat in the coming year. “The first 2yrs will be slow because farmer and us – both of us are learning. After we have the critical mass, we can expand faster,” says Chandra who also takes inspiration in the Argentine success story of Gustavo

In the long run, Bhushan Agro is headed in the direction of becoming the biggest producer of all grain in India with primary focus on grains and cereals for vegetables, high value crops like turmeric have high margins but they require investments as well

The core of this startup is to promote farmer security enabling sustainable yields and better productivity yet the possibility of exploitation also seems high if the Government allows foreign companies to acquire land holdings on lease. With Madhavan’s methods shows results, Chandra Dubey is hopeful about the scientific methods being employed. Only time can tell if these methods will bring long term sustainable yields, for startup they may be, but farming is a business that takes time to yield results.

We wish Chandra and Bhushan Agro all the very best!