Troubled by middlemen and after years of not getting fair price for his produce, Sukhwinder Pal Singh (50), a farmer hailing from remote Kallu Sohal village of Gurdaspur district, stopped going to the mandis to sell his produce in 2021. He now stores raw materials at his place, processes it and sells it on his own throughout the year.
Pal, who hails from a family of farmers, got into the job when he was just a teenager about three decades ago.
“Over the years, I realized I was not very happy with the ongoing system of agricultural practice as it did not give the desirable family income. Earlier, I used to visit the mandis (grain markets) a few times every year, but that meant having to deal with seasonal market fluctuations and middlemen. I realized the inefficiencies of selling raw grains at the market. It was not only economically challenging but also limited in terms of generating regular income. To become a direct seller and to get a regular income, I decided to turn into an entrepreneur and started processing my own produce,” he says.
“With the support of my family and driven by a vision to innovate, I started a small processing unit on my farm. The ICICI Foundation gave me a ‘wooden Kohlu’ (oil extraction machine) for free under their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme. I started processing mustard seed which I had grown in my fields,” he says, adding that he cultivates mustard on 4 acres of his total 15 acres, producing approximately 24 quintals of mustard seed.
He extracts around 6 quintals (approximately 25% of the total processed mustard seed) of oil from it. “I sell this oil under the brand name ‘Sehaj Natural Products’ at the rate of Rs 350 per liter because I do organic farming and the prices of the organic products are higher than the inorganic products,” he says, adding that the wooden oil machine can only extract one quintal of oil in 10 hours, and only 25% of oil can be obtained from processing one quintal of mustard seed. He says that the slow processing speed is crucial as it keeps all nutritional ingredients intact in the final product.
He then expanded to processing sesame, Alsi (Flax Seed), and coconut oils by procuring organic products from other organic producers. He has also set up a small flour mill producing multigrain flour and sells organic Basmati rice grown on his own fields.
His dedication yielded a successful result for the quality of his products when his products got certification from Punjab Agro and are approved by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). “These certifications validate our efforts and assure our customers of the highest standards,” Sukhwinder says, adding that the “decision to process and sell under my own brand was about taking control of my livelihood and offering consumers a superior product they can trust.
By eliminating intermediaries, Sukhwinder not only ensures fair pricing for consumers but also maximizes profits for himself. “Direct selling protects us from the uncertainties of market prices and the commissions taken by middlemen,” he adds, reflecting on how this approach has stabilized his income throughout the year.
Sukhwinder adds that he wanted to create products that reflect purity and freshness as “because of the high use of pesticide and insecticide these days we are offering toxic foods to the consumers”. “I also wanted a regular income as raw produce can be sold in the grain market twice or thrice a year and it was not giving me work for more than 5-6 months every year. Also it was economically not efficient, but my processing unit and selling my products to consumer directly keeps me employed throughout the year,” he says, adding that self selling and self marketing protects me from middlemen who gets the major share of a farmer’s income.
“What I was earning earlier was much below the income I have generated now. It is almost double from the previous income of mine. The most important thing is that now I provide employment to over a dozen people who help me with packaging and distribution. I started marketing my product on WhatsApp and other social media platforms and to my surprise, people from nearby villages started showing interest. They appreciated the quality and the assurance that came with buying directly from us,” he says. Word spread quickly and soon,
Pal’s processing experiments, which turned into a small-scale processing unit, started getting several regular customers.
Looking ahead, he envisions to produce more organic products at his 15 acres as currently he is growing organic basmati, mustard, wheat, paddy, turmeric, and other oil seeds etc. “Sukhwinder Pal’s journey from a farmer to an entrepreneur had not been a smooth ride but he was determined and today’s result is in front of everyone. He had proven that with determination and a bit of creativity, one could turn every seed sown into a story of success. it’s about empowering the local economy, getting self employment and a regular earning rather crying like a distressed farmer,” says Faridkot Chief Agriculture Officer Amrik Singh, who was earlier posted in Gurdaspur.