Mangaluru: Though people prefer to buy agricultural products like vegetables, fruits, seeds among others, they do not get them easily. If they want to have these products, they need to go and search at various places or they need to go to rural areas. However, there is no guarantee that they are getting good quality products.
However, here is an opportunity for the people to buy agriculture products online. LocalFarmers.in, is a website wherein farmers and consumers can transact directly. Farmers can register as ‘Farmer’ and post their products for sale. Consumers can select the produces from farmers they like and buy it online. Currently, the payment mode will be “cash on delivery.” But in the near future, online payment will be available.
This LocalFarmers.in website is helpful for the farmers to sell their products directly to the consumers. However, there is no guaranty that these products are produced only through organic farming. Tulunad organic producers’ is an informal group of farmers with a FB page fb.me/tulunadorganics. wherein all the members of this group are engaged in organic farming. The members of this group produce only organic products.
The inception
Yatheesh Bondala, a resident of Bondala in Bantwal taluk was working in an IT company at Bengaluru. As he is from an agricultural family, he was always interested in farming. Three years ago, it became inevitable for him to quit his IT profession and take up farming activities. Being an educated person, he knew what are the merits of organic farming and the defects of farming using chemicals. Hence, he opted for organic farming.
Yatheesh Bondala, Founder of Local Farmers
Initially, he started a WhatsApp group under the title of “Raitharinda Grahakarige” (Farmers to Consumers). The members of this group started selling their organic products through this WhatsApp group. When the organic farmers were forced to sell their products for cheaper rates in the local market, they decided to sell it directly to the consumers. Hence, they started to sell their organic products in a separate place called “Savayava Santhe.”, which is a concept run by ‘Savayava Krushika Grahaka Balaga’ of Mangaluru. The vision of this concept is to create awareness in Urban consumers on organic food and lifestyle and to super organic farmers. Though the prices are high for the organic products, consumers started turning up in large number towards Savayava Santhe.
As people are more interested in online purchase these days, Yatheesh decided to connect with consumers online. After that, he started a website LocalFarmers.in. His wife Sridevi and cousin Rajath Shetty who are software Engineers also contributed for this project. Now around 25 farmers from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kasargod district have registered in this website.
A bridge between consumers and farmers
Yatheesh Bondala says “With this platform, we aim to contribute towards better farming practices, healthier food to the consumers and the much required financial and morale boost to farmers. Though we have started a website to connect with the consumers, there is also a plan to start an app in the coming days. Our main intention is to promote organic products and to create a bridge between farmers and consumers ”
In order to avail agricultural products quickly, people can now log on to https://localfarmers.in/. For more details contact Yatheesh Bondala at +91 9972200775 (9 AM-6.30 PM IST) for help.
