Nia Agrocommodity Marketplace Private Limited: Improving And Embellishing The Lives Of Farmers With Transparency
In India, the plight of the farmer across many states is not as good as it should be. They have been facing a number of obstacles in the course of doing farming from starting to end process which is obviously pathetic and unexpected in such an agricultural country. By seeing and observing all the barriers of the courageous farmers, a company was set up with the name “NIA Agrocommodity Marketplace Private Limited” by a visionary entrepreneur Ajai Kumar Agrawal with a vision to empower farmers.
NIA was incorporated in Oct 2013. Before establishing NIA, the company had been serving to farmers of the country for more than 10 years with the same promoters and the vision with a different name (Agroecommerce Network Private Limited). The core purpose of the company was to provide facilities to farmers such as knowledge (quality, productivity, cost and many more) and services (banking, warehousing, and insurance). It was a farmer-centric model, spread in 35 districts in five northern states with 800 centers. Despite rendering such helpful services to the farmers, the core issue could not be resolved that was the marketing of the products and its price.
Therefore, the company (NIAAGRO) was established with the motto “Demand-Driven Ag-economy” to provide equal chances to farmers to get the fair market price, not minimum support price (MSP) throughout the year. Fortunately, with the idea of the company, it became possible to convince the farmers to have a hold during harvesting to get the maximum profit at the time of selling the products. Eventually, it should be more organized through an aggregator or an FPO for which momentum is building up, even the finance minister targeted to have new 4000 FPO registration in few coming years.
SERVICES TO SOLVE HUGE PROBLEMS
In the current market, farmers have few choices to sell their products at physical markets that do not render the fare price of the goods. Despite investing money in transportation and the process of doing agriculture as well as the commission of the agents, farmers feel unsatisfied with the offered price by the buyers.
THE COMPANY HAS COME AHEAD WITH SOME RESULT-ORIENTED SERVICES AS :-
- Having the “Commodity Specific” B2B marketplace, “NIA Agrocommodity Marketplace” renders all the sellers along with FPOs with the fair market price. It makes the farmers decision-makers whether they are going to sell their goods or wait for the right time. B2B not only creates more alternatives for both farmers and buyers to opt but also fills the gap of quality and logistics management to reduce the pain respectively. B2B platforms are successfully optimizing supply chain management and minimizing risks and losses.
- Quality management measures are being taken care of by initiatives of “National Agriculture Market” before putting goods for selling in the market, all the specifications of commodities are measured along with established infrastructure for assessing grade at all Mandis (markets) so that goods can be certified.
- The gaps of proper storage are also being fulfilled by FPOs with the help of putting a world-class vertical grain storage system. NIA has all the plans to support such storage systems at the village level.
Besides doing all these tremendous things, the company is focused on logistics management and trade finance with the help of technology. Even, the whole ecosystem is run and supported through technology to get huge economic advantages to all the stakeholders.
THE BUSINESS MODEL OF THE COMPANY MADE BY OBSERVING CURRENT NEEDS
In this hotch-potch market and management, the company has developed its business model to optimize the services, given to the clients. The suppliers are considered the partners and buyers as the clients of the company. All the clients including institutional clients (mills) who buy a huge amount of commodities on a daily basis not only for current needs but also for future requirements as per their economic capacity as well as stocking the goods by the third parties to release them when the prices are high to get the huge profit.
To resolve such complicated problems, three solutions have been developed as current requirements, future requirements and stocking plans. The company manages five variables of business such as location, quantity, quality, price and payment terms in all three solutions made by the company. Besides this, the business team ensures complete transparency and makes transactions risk-free. Clients are provided some additional services as testing services through accredited labs, trucking services, and trade finance services.
THE TECHNOLOGY EXPANDING THE CLIENTELE OF THE COMPANY
Being part of this fast-changing and growing world, the role of technology cannot be denied in any industry so as with agriculture. Technology has changed the format of doing business. It makes supply chain management more authentic, productive, efficient & capable.
THERE ARE MANY KEY FACTORS WHICH ARE MODERNIZING THE WAY OF DOING BUSINESS SUCH AS:-
- B2B has generated a great landscape for agriculture commodities in India that is the future of the upcoming business module.
- BI has a vital role to provide a good dashboard and reporting system which assures transparency to the clients.
- AI &MI are applied to a great extent, helping in decision-making fast and greatly.
Providing such tech platforms has provided integrated ERP to sellers and buyers, technology is also being utilized for better sourcing, quality management, logistics management & finance management that are core part of supply chain management besides introducing sellers and buyers to each other.
Having such a candid vision with transparency has increased the number of the clientele of the company which is making the company stronger in the industry. A good client base categories of mills including top brands of different commodities have already been registered such as:-
- Chip Grade Potato – 70 Chips and Bujia Manufactures
- Maize – 300 Feed Mills, 50 Starch Mills and few Distilleries
- Wheat – 200 Flour Mills
- Paddy – 250 Rice Mills
- Soybean – Oil Mills
- Soya Meal – Feed Mills
- Broken Rice – Distilleries and Breweries, Starch Mills
- Pulses – Dal Mills
- Spices – Mills Manufacturing and processing spices
ENSURING THE BEST WORK ENVIRONMENT FOR ITS TEAMS
To make things happen and get their fruits, they need to have a healthy and pleasant environment that NIA ensures for its dedicated and enthusiastic employees. The work culture is extremely professional and result-oriented which increases productivity along with great learning. Despite being professional and disciplined, NIA does not compromise with personal needs, desires and many other celebrations of the teams like birthdays, all festivals and so on.
BUILDING THE FAITH STRONG TO STRONGER
Although the agriculture commodities supply chain management is a complicated process because commodities are produced once in a year and consumed all throughout the year. But NIA has made and developed a number of expertise such as domain and product expertise, supply and demand analysis of commodities, supply chain solution expertise, commercial expertise, and many others.
The core part of the business is to provide the alternatives to the buyers and sellers with transparency which helps them to connect with each other. There are some parameters for buyers and sellers which are as follows:-
- To authenticate buyers on the behalf of vendor identification, vendor registration, trade finance, testing services, ERP solution with mandi data & dashboard and so on.
- For the suppliers – direct integration with buyers, complete process management with documentation control of purchase order, invoicing and payments and many others.
COMMENDABLE ACHIEVEMENTS OF NIA
During the course of its services and offerings, NIA has provided a great economic advantage to its stakeholders by converting farmers into suppliers to eradicate mediators, transportation & multiple storages through farmer producing companies (FPCs). Getting into other sections as suppliers like stockists, traders, whole-sellers, commission agents will provide them the fair market price. In India, more than 200 million metric tons of these commodities get processed every year at 7000 mills. The company has got a lot to share as the fruits of its hard work such as registering 1000 mills on various portals and chances to add 500 mills every year. Although the market has been ‘Supply Driven‘ but the company has made it ‘Demand Driven’ so that Indian agriculture may have its share in the GDP to contribute to making a $5 trillion economy by 2026.
