Agrostar Direct to farmer’ m-commerce platform

A Pune-based ‘direct to farmer’ m-commerce platform, Agrostar strives to provide quality agro inputs at the farmers’ doorstep.

What is Agrostar ?

AgroStar enables farmers to procure a range of agricultural goods such as seeds, crop nutrition, crop protection and agri-hardware products by simply giving a missed call on the company’s 1800 number or through their mobile app to eliminate unavailability of products, substandard products, duplication and adulteration.

The Challenge?

Farm inputs, just like farming practices, traditionally relied on well-established but archaic systems. Such systems were not completely accessible at the village levels. There was a major gap in the availability of good quality agri inputs. What was available at the village level was mostly manufactured locally or there remains a problem of duplicate and adulterated products. Over 50% of the market comprises local, unbranded, poor-quality products. Another key problem that continues to exist is that farmers are often misguided on the agri inputs to be used, be it seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, or farm implements. Their lack of awareness about products available and traditional farming has been the main reasons why farmers have fallen into the trap of misguidance and cheating. The retailers and the local community are not equipped to address this knowledge gap.

​It is little wonder that farmers end up compromising on the one thing that is central to their success or failure - the farm inputs they use that help them sustain quality and ensure better yields.

The Solution

Our ground presence and intense research at the start of our journey made us realize this deep-rooted and grave problem of farmers. We realized that solving this problem will have a huge impact, not just on farmers, but on the agricultural sector of India. We decided to solve it. Inspired by the e-commerce based solutions that were available in urban cities, we thought of replicating the model in rural, albeit with innovative alternatives to tackle the challenges of the rural setup.