Poor rainfall, market volatility, and mounting indebtedness are among the hazards that Indian farmers confront every year. The COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand,  posed additional problems to the sector. When the COVID pandemic broke out and caused a countrywide lockdown, Agritech businesses faced problems, especially in ground operations.  

As a result of the lockdown, Agri-commodities remained unsold, with over 50-60% of  Mandis being shut down, significantly affecting the whole Agri output industry. Farmers faced the fear of not earning enough or a single penny due to such an unprecedented situation. At the same time, traders suffered huge losses and faced livelihood challenges. 

Gram Vyapar in Action 

To address this critical industry challenge, Gramophone launched the Gram Vyapar in March 2021, which not only solves this unprecedented situation, but also empowers farmers to choose whom they want to sell, and that to traders from all over India. On the other hand, it allows traders to connect with farmers directly and close the trade. In a nutshell, this Digital Mandi platform simplifies the overall crop buying-selling experience.  

Since 2016 Gramophone has already been helping farmers as an intelligent farming platform, providing agronomy intelligence + Agri-input commerce with free home delivery. More than 8 lacs farmers onboarded, backed up by solid farmer’s behavior data & right technology in place, Gramophone was rightly positioned to solve this problem. The launch of Gram Vyapaar has turned the Gramophone platform into a  full-stack platform for farmers. 

How Gram Vyapaar Works? 

Gram Vyapar has made it easier for farmers to sell their products from the comfort of their homes during this lockdown period. Let’s have a look at how –

 

The platform allows farmers to create a sell listing encapsulating all the details of their crops- crop name, expected pricing, available quantity, and quality of the crop.  

Similarly, buyers a.k.a. traders can also generate their own buy listings, where they can specify their buying requirements – crop name, target pricing, quantity, and quality requirements.

 

So, that’s how Gram Vyapaar acts as a matchmaking platform for farmers and traders, simplifying the buying-selling process. Gramophone team verifies the listings to ensure the quality of trade. Farmers may check out the trader profiles and contact them immediately using the call option available within the platform itself. 

The Challenges Gram Vyapaar Conquered 

The road to making Gram Vyapaar has not been easy, Gramophone team had to conquer many roadblocks and the major ones have been –   

• Winning the Trust of Traders – Getting traders onboard has been a significant hurdle. Our team worked directly on the ground with traders, training them on platform benefits, how technology can connect them with thousands of farmers. Our strong Agri-input connection with 8 Lac+ farmers was a great benefit for them.  
• Making Farmers believe in Gram Vyapaar – Even we have lacs of farmers on our platform we still had to win them for this, farmers gave an overwhelming response by making sell listings and when they started closing the trade, the referral and word of mouth made them believe.
• Communication – Pandemic made everyone adopt the digital tools of communications and we made sure to engage farmers and traders via App,  social media, and Live Classes.
• The Geography Expansion – Amid lockdown geographical reach was another challenge we faced and we still are solving it. To bring traders of different regions mandis together has been our one major priority.

Milestones Achieved

What Gram Vyapaar aims to Solve? 

Looking at such a tremendous response, we are planning to expand in other states soon, with the aim to strike the 3 main goals: 

• We strive to curtail information asymmetry throughout the entire supply chain with our market intelligence tool, which will provide better price discovery and pertinent data on arrivals and quality of several commodities across the country thus helping the Agri-Ecosystem to run at a higher equilibrium.

• Eventually facilitating stronger market linkages for the farmers and garnering a better value for their produce.

Though it’s only getting started, we believe Gram Vyapaar to have a big influence on the Agri-output industry in the future and to be the most trustworthy source for our farmers and traders to buy and sell the crops.