Get farmers a fair price

An agritech app connects farmers to the people who buy their produce, and makes each step of the sale visible. Farmers list what they have, the produce is graded, buyers make offers, and payment reaches the farmer directly, with every deduction shown.

The word covers a lot: crop advisory, input sales, farm records, credit, storage. This page is about the part that most directly decides a farmer’s income, the sale. When farmers can see buyers’ bids beside the day’s mandi price, and know when and how they will be paid, they stop depending on a single commission agent’s word.

The software only works if farmers use it, which is why most of our effort goes into the farmer’s side: voice instead of typing, their own language, basic phones and patchy networks.

It is for organisations that buy from or sell for many small farmers: farmer producer companies and FPOs, cooperatives, agri traders, exporters, processors, and food and retail businesses that want to buy directly from growers.

Each has the same problem from a different side. An FPO wants its members to get better prices and faster payment. A processor or retail chain wants consistent grades and reliable supply. An exporter needs traceability for every carton. All of them are dealing with thousands of small lots, phone calls and paper slips.

For a farmer producer company in Nashik, whose members grow onions, grapes, pomegranates and tomatoes around Lasalgaon, one of Asia’s largest onion markets, we built a farm-to-buyer trading app with voice listing in Marathi, AI grading from photos, open bids and direct payments.

We start in villages, at collection centres and at the mandi, because the people who will use the app are not in a meeting room. In Nashik we spent the first month beside farmers, quality staff and buyers, and four lessons shaped the whole platform.

Farmers talk; they don’t type, so voice had to be the main way in. Grade decides price, and grading at the mandi felt like a judgement nobody could question. Small farmers sell small lots, but big buyers want full truckloads of one grade. And late payment hurt more than low prices: farmers needed to know when they would be paid and what would be deducted.

Your crops, region and buyers will teach different lessons. Finding them before we build is cheaper than finding them after launch.

The farmer app speaks the farmer’s language. To list produce, a farmer presses one button and says the crop, variety, quantity and expected harvest date. The app turns the speech into a listing and reads it back for the farmer to confirm or correct, by voice.

In Nashik the app runs in Marathi, using Bhashini, the Indian government’s language AI, and Google Gemini to turn speech into structured listings. Farmers who store onions after the rabi harvest can list stored stock too, with the date it went into storage. The same approach works in Hindi, Gujarati and other Indian languages, and we test each one with farmers, including the local names they use for crops and varieties.

Some farmers will always prefer help. Field staff can register them, verify their bank accounts and make their first listing with them, as the Nashik company’s field staff do.

Grading is where trust is won or lost, so the platform separates an estimate from a decision. A photo of the produce gives an AI estimate of its grade, from size, colour and visible damage, which lets buyers plan before the produce moves.

The final grade is set by people. At the collection centre, quality staff weigh each farmer’s produce and confirm its grade on the platform, using your own standards for each crop, such as size bands for onions. The farmer sees the weight and grade on the phone. Every confirmed grade is fed back to the AI, so its estimates improve season by season.

A fair price is easier to recognise when the market is in view. The day’s prices at nearby mandis appear beside every lot, so farmers and buyers judge each offer against the same reference.

Buyers, such as traders, exporters, processors and retail chains, see graded lots by crop, grade, quantity and location in their own app. They bid within a set time or buy at a fixed price your organisation sets. Farmers see every bid on their produce, and the winning price is final once the bidding closes, with every bid on record.

Mandi prices can come from public sources such as Agmarknet, the government’s market price portal, or from your own staff at the market. Either way, the source and the time of each price are shown beside it, so nobody has to take a number on trust.

Large buyers want full trucks of one grade, and a small farmer brings a few crates. At the collection centre, staff combine lots of the same grade from many farmers into the truckloads buyers want, and the platform records each farmer’s share by weight and grade. The scale belongs to the group, but the payment stays individual. Each truck records its buyer, vehicle and documents with the load, so a question about weight or grade at the buyer’s end can be traced back to every farmer’s lot.

Export produce needs more. Lots can carry the farm registration, residue test details and history that exporters ask for, as export grapes do in Nashik, so traceability is built as the produce moves rather than reconstructed afterwards.

Payment is where a platform earns farmers’ loyalty. The buyer pays through the platform, and each farmer’s share is worked out from the weight and grade of their produce. Every deduction, such as handling, transport and your organisation’s fee, is listed, and the rest goes straight to the farmer’s own bank account.

Farmers receive a receipt by SMS in their language and can see every payment and deduction in the app. Payments run through a regulated payment provider, such as Razorpay in Nashik, so nobody carries cash between the centre and the village.

When farmers are paid is a rule you set and publish, and each farmer sees the expected payment date as soon as the bidding closes. Sales, deductions and payouts can also flow into your accounting software, such as Tally, so your books and each member’s statement always agree.

We need your crops and grade standards, the records of a recent season, and an owner on your side. Grade standards become the rules quality staff work to. Past sales, prices and payments show us where the money and the time go. The owner is usually whoever runs procurement or member services, someone farmers and buyers already trust.

Before we build, we agree how success will be measured: the price farmers receive against the mandi rate, days from sale to payment, the number of farmers listing each week, the share of produce sold through the platform, and disputes about grades. We watch those measures through the pilot season and report them every month after.

Agriculture runs on seasons, so we plan the build around the harvest. In Nashik, the pilot started with onion growers at two collection centres; grapes, pomegranates and tomatoes followed once the first season’s grades, bids and payments had been checked with the farmers.

After launch we run the platform with you. We tune AI grading from the confirmed grades, add crops, centres, buyers and languages, and make sure the platform handles the harvest peak, when listings, bids and payments all arrive at once.