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In India, there is a big gap in time (12hrs) from when a farmer harvests tomatoes, to when a driver picks up the tomatoes. This causes 20% of the tomatoes to spoil by the time they reach market. Because of this, many farmers are facing poverty — most of them make only 120k rupees per year.
Our solution solves this by tying into the already integrated WhatsApp farming ecosystem, with a management / contracting system for both drivers and farmers, securing connections. This reduces the time from harvest to pickup, to less than 2 hours, reducing waste to 2-3% (80% less than before)
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This is how the supply chain looks like for a tomato — harvest to wholesale
Pre harvest: A farmer plants a tomato seed into the ground month ~80 days before a planned harvest date.
Harvest: The farmer systematically goes through a farm and hand picks (or in larger farms uses machinery) to harvest tomatoes. They then store them in either large crates, or bamboo containers
Negotiation: The farmer then finds and negotiates with a driver. This negotiation is to incentivize the driver to choose their farm, rather than someone else’s farm.
Pickup: The farmer loads the tomatoes onto the truck for delivery
Market: A middleman (gov body or person with a license) will manage a negotiation between wholesalers and the farmers. Once sold, the money goes downstream all the way back to a farmer.
Wholesale: A driver takes the bought tomatoes directly to whatever market needed. These include grocery stores and street markets.
From the moment tomatoes are harvested to their arrival at the wholesale market, the process typically takes 18–36 hours.
This timeline includes: