Arya, a post-harvest agritech and fintech company, is planning to expand its presence in Telangana by increasing its warehousing capacity to 2.5 lakh MT as farm activities speed up across the state. It also intends to concentrate on making commodity-backed financing more accessible to farmers in order to avoid agricultural distress sales.
It presently has 45 warehouses and manages 1.75 lakh MT of stock in 13 districts. It provides services to over 500 farmers and Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs), as well as dealers and corporations. Telangana's total assets under management are estimated to be around Rs 150 crore.
“In the season ahead, we intend to grow in TS and increase our business by 25%. We need to expand our personnel, infrastructure, and warehousing partnerships, as well as engage with farmers. We'd like to assist farmers in becoming more prominent on a national digital platform. Our focus is on training farmers on storage and selling produce at the proper time to minimize distress sales", Anand Chandra, co-founder of Arya, said.
Its integrated financing framework provides farm produce as collateral for loans. “No additional collateral is required. Commodities are a good source of security, especially during harvest season when prices are typically low. We help farmers get loans so they don't have to sell their land. They may stockpile the food and sell when prices rise", he stated.
It digitized nearly 7,000 FPOs and 5,000 warehouses around the country, among other things. Its platform currently has around 55,000 farmers on it. Aggregation, storage, finance, and market linkage for over 2.5 to 3 million tonnes per year are all possible with the company.
“At the national level, we are establishing a guarantee fund to cover losses that lenders may incur as a result of events such as price crashes. We assume that no commodity's price will fall more than 50% below its current level. Farmers will not be pursued by lenders if there are losses at the farm level because the fund guarantees payments to them,” he added, noting that Arya permits farmers and FPOs to sell products via its electronic marketplace.
“Village farmers should start utilizing the same seed. When it comes to concerns with aggregating farm produce, this will ensure uniform output and promote better negotiating with buyers,” he said. Chana, paddy, chili, maize, and cotton are the principal crops it deals with.
He said that Rythu Bandhu, an investment support scheme that gives around 59 lakh farmers Rs 5,000 per acre twice a year, was helping them save money.
