Maratha Vidya Prasarak Samaj’s

Karmaveer Adv. Baburao Ganpatrao Thakare

College of Engineering

Department of MBA

A
Report
On
Industrial Visit
to

Sahyadri Farmers Producer Company Ltd.

(Mohadi, Nashik)
On
08/09/2023
By

Mr. / Ms. Mogal Sumit Sanjay

MBA-FY
Roll No:42
Division/Class:B
Submission Date:13/9/2023

1
 Index

Sr. No. Content Page No.

Introduction to Farmer Producer
1 3
Company (FPC)
2 Sahyadri FPC: Journey to Success 4/6
Sahyadri Farmer Producer Company:
3 7/10
Profile
Visit Experience & Learning (At least 10
4 11
Learnings Expected)
5 Conclusion 12

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 1) INTRODUCTION TO FARMER PRODUCER COMPANY
(FPC)

WHAT IS A FARMER PRODUCER COMPANY?

A Farmer Producer Company (FPC) can be formed by any 10 or more primary producers or
by two or more producer institutions, or by a contribution of both. An FPC is a hybrid
between cooperative societies and private limited companies. The Farmer Producer
Companies, registered under the Indian Companies Act, 2013, have democratic governance,
each producer or member has equal voting rights irrespective of the number of shares held.

BENEFITS
The main aim of FPC is to ensure better income for the producers through an organization of
their own. Small producers do not have the volume individually (both inputs and produce) to
get the benefit of economies of scale. Besides, in agricultural marketing, there is a long chain
of intermediaries who very often work non-transparently leading to the situation where the
producer receives only a small part of the value that the ultimate consumer pays. Through
aggregation, the primary producers can avail the benefit of economies of scale. They will also
have better bargaining power vis-à-vis the bulk buyers of produce and bulk suppliers of
inputs.

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2)SAHYADRI FARMS: JOURNEY TO SUCCESS

Sowing the Seeds of Success

“Alone we can do little; together we can do so much”. With this as their belief, four smallholder
farmers led by Mr Vilas Shinde took their first steps on a long and purposeful journey. What
started as an informal understanding between these smallholder farmers quickly transformed
into a movement of farmers which has grown today into the leading fruits & vegetable export
company from India servicing over 18,000 registered farmers that cover 31,000 acres and 9
crops.
Sahyadri’s vision was clear: To build people, processes and practices to enable and empower
smallholder Indian farmers to compete with the best by cultivating the highest quality fresh
produce. Since its inception, Sahyadri remains fully committed to helping farmers overcome
the barriers to finance, technology adoption and product value addition.
In time, Sahyadri’s self-contained infrastructure encompassed an agro-advisory team, a world-
class pack-house, cold storage facility and a technology backbone to help achieve scale
meaningfully. Soon enough, Sahyadri Farms became a hub of value addition by building and
operating an agri-value chain that was efficient, expedient and innovative.
While building Sahyadri Farms, there was an acute realisation that post-harvest losses not only
imply wastage of food but also represent a colossal waste of human labour, agri-inputs,
financial investments and scarce resources like water.
The ultra-modern campus of Sahyadri Farms helps farmers access the latest technology and
processing infrastructure, follow global best practices and offer the highest quality fresh and
processed products to discerning consumers globally.
Circa 2022, We have just begun. Clearly, our best is yet to come.

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Building crop-specific integrated value chains.
The model of a small land holding farmer being independent and self-sufficient is very difficult
to achieve. Climate change and the overuse of fertilisers over the past few decades have
worsened this. Also, the entire value chain is disparate, broken and fragmented.
With this in mind, Sahyadri Farms started its journey to solve the issue of scalability, farmer
sustainability and consumer benefit. It's 100% owned by farmers alone.
The intent was to build a sustainable, scalable and profitable agri-enterprise anchored by
marquee Indian and global investors. It would provide a holistic solution to farmers so that
farming becomes a profitable activity for all the smallholder and marginal farmers associated
with Sahyadri Farms.
We believe that it’s possible to ensure sustainable income to the small and marginal farmers in
the developing economies thus ensuring a life of dignity for them and their families. We intend
to achieve this without putting burden on our end-consumers.
By removing unnecessary middlemen, offering better logistics, reducing post-harvest losses
and providing trust and transparency to consumers, we can achieve sustainability for the
farmers and provide quality and assurance to consumers.

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Sahyadri Model delivering Benefits to the Farmers

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 SAHYADRI FARMERS PRODUCER
COMPANY:INTRODUCTION

Sahyadri Farmer Producer Company Ltd. (SFPCL) came into being in the year 2011,
as a revenue model, while ensuring reasonable returns to the farmers and quality and safe food
to the consumers. SFPCL is a leading farmer producer company working with 8000 farmer
members with a capital base of ₹52 crore. The company is working with a tagline “of the
farmers, by the farmers, for the farmers”. Sahyadri was a movement started by Shri. Vilas
Shinde, Chairman of the company, with focus on the welfare of the farmers to get them their
righteous due, while doing business profitably.
It is pertinent here to mention a few words about the mentor of this FPC, Shri Vilas
Shinde. Shri Shinde, after completing his Post-Graduation in Agricultural Engineering from
MPKVV, Rahuri, Maharashtra, worked in a private company for a brief period. However, he
had a passion to make business out of agriculture which was his family occupation. Initially,
he started cultivating export quality of grapes and used to market the same through agents
appointed by the export firms. He realised that the price paid by such agents was much lower
compared to the international market price. This prompted him to explore an opportunity to
sell his grapes directly to the exporting firms for better price compared to price paid by the

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agents. Due to low marketable surplus with him, he realised the need for scaling up by working
with other farmers in the region. He started procuring the export quality grapes from farmers
in his village and nearby villages for export of the same to Europe and other countries. It so
happened that in the year 2010, the entire consignment of grapes exported from India was
rejected and all the exporters incurred heavy losses. Further, most of the exporters passed on
their losses to the farmers. However, Shri Vilas Shinde who procured grapes worth ₹7 crore,
paid the entire amount of the farmers. This helped him win permanent trust and loyalty of the
farmers associated with him.
The idea behind the enterprise was to buy all the Fruits & Vegetables offered by the
farmers in strict compliance with food safety standards. The challenges before the company
was to provide the best of infrastructure, adequate production and processing facilities to the
farmers, who had very low level of awareness about Good Agriculture Practices (GAP).
The company intended to have branded traceable product-mix that would promote
sustained growth and ensure the supply of the best quality produce to the Indian Consumers at
reasonable prices. The company realised its sole objective, due to operation of economies of
scale and reduction in transaction cost. The initiative was focused on building the brand
‘Sahyadri’ by “seeding goodness”.

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COMPANY PROFILE

The company has emerged from the scratch. Today it can boast state-of-the- art technology
with integrated supply chains of different produce both for the international and domestic
market. The following tables reflect the profile of the company.
1 Name of the Company Sahyadri Farmers Producer Co.Ltd
2 Corporate Identity Number U01403MH2010PTC211392
3 Registration Date 27th December 2010
4 Category/ Sub-Category of the Company Limited by Shares Indian Non-
Company Government Company
5 Whether listed Company No
6 Address of Company SR.NO.102/8,
Behind police head quarter
At/Post
Mohadi,Dindori,Nashik,Maharashtra,India
422207

The company laid down its vision and mission on follows:-

Vision
To be a leading Farmer Producer Company (FPC) with the power to bridge the gap
between the rural and urban communities;

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 • To make farming a profitable & sustainable business for all farmer members
• To provide safe, healthy, affordable - farm produce and value added products to the
Consumer.

Mission

Sahyadri Farms to be a trusted, value driven and professionally managed Farmer

Producer Company (FPC) of the farmers, by the farmers, for the farmers.
1. Sahyadri Farms aims to make farming profitable and sustainable by;
• Assuring the best possible realization for all farm produce under all circumstances,
• Optimal utilization of available resources, as well as reducing overall costs at the
farm level and also throughout the value chain,
• Effective financial and risk management,
• Mentoring the farmers to increase productivity and quality produce as per global
standards using appropriate technology,
• Effective Post-harvest Management,
• Better access to market
2. Developing a robust supply chain, which promises traceable, safe, healthy, and
affordable - farm produce and value added products, from farm to plate.
3. Building respectable relationships with the environment, employees and all other
Stakeholders.

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VISIT EXPERIENCE & LEARNINGS

Being a part of interactive learning, such educational visits gives us a major exposure to real
working environments along with a practical perspective of a theoretical concept relevant to
our domain. In addition to that, industrial visits bridge the widening gap between theoretical
learning and practical exposure by giving students the first-hand exposure to identify the inputs
and outputs for different business operations and processes performed at the workplace.
Intending to go beyond classroom learning, the industrial tours contribute a lot in holistic
student development by letting students learn about the current trends in the market, the future
scenario of the industry and the new technologies that are being applied in the industry.
Industrial trips help us to enhance our interpersonal, communication skills, and teamwork
abilities. These visits have, time and again, proved to be an excellent platform for networking
as the students interact and connect with the corporate via official social media platforms like
Face book, Linked In, and Twitter. These educational/ industrial trips also help the students
identify their learning towards a branch and decide their future work areas like marketing,
finance, operations, IT, HR, etc.

Learnings
• Vilas Shinde Sir Said Always See “Problems As Opportunity”.
• Dada Gangurde Said That “Don’t Take So Many Degrees, Do Anything That You Like
To Do”.
• Came To Know About Various Digital Technologies In Agriculture Value Chain
Management.
• Women entrepreneurs also guided us.
• Came To Know About Farmers Problems.
• Came To Know About The Power Of Farmers Unity.
• Got To Know About 60% Of Grapes Is Exported By Sahyadri Farms Along The World.
• I Learn That Never Fear To Take A Risk , Because Vilas Shinde Sir Had A Thrilling
Struggle Life Experience But Then Also He Keep Struggling And At Last He Became
A Successful Entrepreneur.
• Do Something Creative.
• Connect With Nature As Well As Agriculture.
• Farmers Struggle and Solutions on them
• Vilas Shinde Also Said that Farmers Should See Agriculture as Business.

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CONCLUSION

The Sahyadri Farmer Producer Company has established itself in less than a decade
time and has become a leading exporter of grapes from India. It has emerged as a
successful model for management and operation of a Farmers producer company in
Indian agricultural environment. A lot may be learnt from the success of the Company.
The capacity of the leader of a company to conceive an idea and translate it into a
business and push it forward through its rough and tumble is something worth quoting
as an inspiring example for others. It is the leader only who can motivate the team and
encourage farmers to come along for establishing a successful partnership. An
association of committed team of workers and loyal farmer members is sine qua non
for evolving a common goal for the success of a Farmer Producer Company.
Furthermore, the culture of a FPC should necessarily be farmer-friendly for its long
term success. Besides, ability to tap the opportunity through a balanced produce mix
and diversification as per requirements of domestic and international market and
strategies to deliver the same to the consumer in time-bound manner at competitive
prices are some of the other business principles to be followed by a FPC. Though a
company may have different stakeholders operating at different levels with varied
interests including financial stakes, what counts as a necessary condition for ensuring
its long-term success is the democratic principle of ‘for the farmers, by the farmers and
of the farmers’.

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