Pratibha Tiwari is a progressive farmer, farming the organic way from Bhopal. She owns the brand Bhumisha Organics and has been with agriculture sector for last 7 years. She found that the biggest problem of organic farmers is marketing, on joining the sector. She wanted to provide the organic products to the consumers without need for any middlemen and for this purpose she started her brand 6 years ago.
She has tie-ups with some farmers and has her own land where they grow green gram (moong), wheat, chickpeas and other items. Her brand provides goods in three ranges. First one is organic certified range, second is chemical free range and lastly natural products range. These are all traditionally and naturally produced and clientele are satisfied with her goods.
At the moment she supplies almost 70 items including processed food. She believes in the concept of “farms to consumers”. Farmer give here the products which she packages and labels and markets. They sell peanuts, Garbanzo beans (kabuli chana), grains, spices, herbs and value-added products with high nutrition value. These processed foods are good source of vitamins and minerals like calcium.
She showed us her product packets with labels of Bhumisha Organics. She showed us the packets of Kabuli chana, rajma (red kidney beans) and manually processed peanuts. If you process the peanuts with machines, some oil comes out of peanuts affecting the quality of peanuts, hence these are manually separated from their covering. She proudly claims that you will get only good and natural products from her brand. Her latest offering is black wheat which she asked her associate farmers to grow. It is particularly useful for avoiding heart diseases. It has low gluten content and is also useful for diabetes patients. They also provide roasted flaxseeds prepared by roasting the seeds soaked in lime water and salt and has very good taste. For the children who do not like the flaxseeds they provide sugar coated flaxseeds.
To tackle Corona, they provide mixed seeds packets, which have seeds of musk melon, pumpkin, watermelon and others. They provide good variety of items at their store and these are very popular. They also provide super-seeds like quinoa seeds, which are usually available as three varieties of red, white and black. In her store they provide red and white quinoa, which are super food.
Pratibha recently has gone on a small journey, by associating herself with 3 farmers and opening a store in Gulmohar Colony, Bhopal. You can track her store through google maps. She specifies her contact number - 9617435709. They have a team of nutritionist and dietician who approve their products and then these are sold through the brand. We serve farmers and consumers in every capacity and believe that there must be no compromises when it comes to health. We want to sell high quality goods which no customer can complain about. They supply their products to Delhi, Mumbai and other regions domestically. Recently they have exported their products through their clients.
Pratibha also encourages farmers especially women farmers as she herself is from a farming family and as a woman farmer she wants to work for betterment of women. In her farm, she herself plants herbs like Shatavari and moong. She suggests to the women farmer to sell whatever they produce through a brand. They must innovate as there is a huge market to be captured. Branding and innovation will benefit us and the society.
She has a farmer friend who owns a pomegranate orchard and are proposing to produce juice, jam and wine out of the pomegranate that she grows. This wine is non-alcoholic and a fruit wine. Pratibha chose this as a value addition example for us, as if her friend sold the pomegranate raw she will earn much less than by selling these processed items. She suggested to her fellow women farmers cultivating wheat and spices that they can start grinding these to capture new markets. She continues that there is great demand for aata (flour) in big cities or urban areas and more money to be made through value addition. She gave another example of value addition, poha made out of organically grown red rice. Some women farmers prepare hand pounded poha which are much easier to sell than raw red rice. You need to be innovative and hard working to succeed in this business. She said we will have a good client base if we sell high quality products and these high-quality products are welcome everywhere. She gave more examples of processed food which will earn more like pickles and papads. These are prepared by some small SHGs.
Pratibha finally addressed not only the women farmers but also all farmers telling them to not just produce crops but add value to them so as to increase the margins of your profits, as these are easier to sell than raw crops. She said she has built big clientele through hard work, imagination and branding. She has now a big market for her products in Bhopal. You can contact her through email at [email protected]. Click here to see the video for yourself.
Share your comments