KHETI is an agri-food tech digital platform. It is an integrated web and mobile-based platform with three modules: KHETI Farm, Farm Management Tool, KHETI Food.
Glocal Khabar interviewed Mr.Tulsi Giri, CEO of “KHETI” to get more information about their venture.
1. Can you give us a brief introduction of KHETI? What was the starting phase like?
KHETI is a flagship product of DV Excellus Pvt. Ltd. DV Excellus, established in 2016, has developed Kheti Platform with 2 major focus Farmers and Consumer to bridge the gap between them and to provide healthy food to the consumer at an affordable price while increasing the income and productivity of the farmers. It is achieved with the following activities.
- Online platform for farmers to purchase agri inputs directly from the manufactures and major importers (KhetiFarm: Farmer focus)
- Farm Management tool for farmers to manage their farms and data to make an informed decision and increase their productivity. (KhetiFarm: Farmer focus)
- Online platform for consumers where consumers can purchase good food directly from farmers with traceability and affordable price. (KhetiFood: Consumer focus)
- Kheti Fulfillment centre to achieve the supply chain efficiency and support the activities of Farmers store and consumer store (Farmers and Consumer focus)
2. How is the business going?
Our business is going fine. Amidst the lockdown, we have been able to continue some of our activities. Khetifood has been delivering food to b2c consumers in Pokhara and Kathmandu, though all our b2b collaborations has been disturbed with this situation.
Khetifarm has been able to operate only in limited capacity delivering farm inputs only to our network of farmers in Kathmandu and Kaski districts though we have a network of farmers in 10 districts.
3. What kind of response do you hear from your customer? Can you share about it?
We have been receiving very great responses from our customers. Some of them are below which are in the recommendations on our Facebook page.
4. What are the challenges you encountered about your venture? What is the state now?
Agri-food sector is itself a very tough business sector, especially when you are working with the business model that goes against the tide of distorted mainstream supply chain. On top, when working to digitalize this sector it means to walk an extra mile to us.
The major challenge for us is to make aware both farmers and consumers on the efficiency and transparency that digitalization of our farming and food sector would bring benefits to the both. Awareness is also a big need in to change our farming and food consumption towards sustainable practices. Equally tough is to find the skilled human resources who want to work in this sector. The biggest of all challenges is there is no appropriate policy intervention from our government towards sustainable farming and food.
Now, this corona crisis somehow emphasized the necessity of local food system.
5. How many employees are working on your team?
We have 25 employees working full time in the company.
6. What are the long term plans that you set up regarding your venture “KHETI”?
We started our commercial operation since Jan 2019. Since our operation we have on boarded 10,000+ farmers in 10 districts, 2,000 household consumers and 40 institutional consumers. We are planning to reach 50,000 farmers, 5000 household consumers and 100 institutional consumers within next 3 years.
7. What message you would like to deliver to the youth?
I have been in this sector for more than a decade now. What disturbs me the most is that young people are going away from this sector year on year. But, all the situations, for e.g. this covid-19 crisis, keep us telling that the youth have to come to work in the sector of food and farming, especially with the focus on sustainable food systems. Our country has a huge backlash in this intervention. I wish we can attract more young people to work in food and farming with required competencies.
The message I have for youth is that there is no short-cut path to any achievements, learn to work hard, be mindful and perseverance. Moreover, you cannot become an entrepreneur by sitting in a rotating chair, you have to learn to make hands dirty.
Website Link: www.dvexcellus.com
Platform:
For Farmers: https://www.kheti.farm
For Consumers: https://www.khetifood.com
