WayCool, DeHaat's direct line to farms as agri License Raj ends

Farm-to-fork is no longer just a hipster demand as radical reforms shake up India's agriculture sourcing. Aggregators rejoice, but traders and states may not be in on it. After all, it puts the reins squarely in the Centre's hands

Farmers are now free to sell their produce to anyone with a PAN card, making the inefficient APMC markets less relevant

This is great news for aggregators like WayCool and DeHaat, which don’t need a license to procure from farmers and don’t need to pay the APMC market fee

Freed from cumbersome rules, aggregators will now be able to expand to new markets and scale up faster

But there are concerns about the lack of regulation putting farmers at a disadvantage

You would expect Karthik Jayaraman to be familiar with the nitty-gritty of sourcing agricultural products from around the country. It is, after all, the raison d’etre of WayCool Foods and Products, the five-year-old startup he co-founded. The company procures fruit and vegetables, dairy, and staples like rice and lentils from farmers across 12 Indian states, and sells to hotels, restaurants, and retailers.

Despite this, India’s Byzantine agriculture laws sometimes leave Jayaraman at a loss. Since agriculture is a state subject, the rules for marketing of produce vary widely across states depending on the crop. “I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t understand all the rules,” Jayaraman says candidly.

AUTHOR

Seetharaman G

Starting out as a business journalist in 2008, Seetharaman has written about energy, climate change, retail, banking, and technology. He has worked with Business Today, a fortnightly, and the Sunday edition of The Economic Times.

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