A Kerala-based agro business start-up has launched a pioneering venture to build India’s first full-stack supply chain bringing banana cultivators, traders and exporters on a single technology-driven platform, equipping them to tap into the country’s surging exports of the fruit.
Greenikk, a start-up cofounded by young IT professionals Fariq Naushad and Previn Jacob, will seamlessly connect banana farmers, dealers, wholesalers, and B2B buyers in the country.
The company has built Enablement Centres (EC) in the major banana producing agri-belts in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. These centres provide the farmers with required support, including finance, seeds, crop advisory, insurance coverage, agri inputs, weather tips, and market connect, covering the entire gamut of production and marketing both inside the country and outside. Similar ECs are planned in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and later in other parts of the country.
The platform will help farmers convert stems of the post-harvest banana plants into natural fibre and re-purpose the other leftovers as manure or poultry feed. Noting that almost 20 crore post-harvest plant stems are being burnt or wasted every year, the Greenikk promoters said their aim is to ensure supplementary income for farmers through value addition of the wasted materials, besides helping curb air pollution.
“Though countries like USA and the UK have just one-third of India’s production, they own most of the popular global brands of value-added banana products. India, with a huge capacity for banana exports, is yet to capture the huge global market for banana-based snacks, health and nutrient supplements. What we are looking at is to place Indian banana on a strong supply chain with global reach, which will ultimately benefit our farmers”, said Fariq and Previn, who were earlier promoters of an East Africa-based IT software start-up.
India accounts for around 25 per cent of the world’s banana production, and the country’s exports of this fruit have grown eight-fold in the last nine years. The National Research Centre for Banana (NRCB) has reported that India produced 32.6 million tons of bananas in 2020 with a land area of 9.6 lakh hectares under cultivation.
