CEO Insights Magazine

Providing the farmers with apt financial assistance as per their need and demand has always been a sensitive factor and many govt. as well as semi govt. organizations of India have been diligently working towards it. A man with a deep expertise in designing & building new business concepts and brands, Alok’s (Co-Founder & COO) career spans close to two decades. During these years, Alok has been associated with many large National and Multinational organizations such as ICICI, ING Vysya Bank and JCDecaux. Born and raised in Punjab, Alok Duggal understands the challenges of the agrarian community and knows the potential of the sector in contributing to the country’s growth and GDP figures and continues to build an e-Commerce market place specifically targeted towards farmers. During his stint with ING Vysya bank he got introduced to the world of micro-finance and rural ecosystem. He was instrumental in building distribution & supply chain for brands which gave insights about how the semi-urban and rural economy functions. During his tremendous journey so far, Alok got pragmatically associated with the farming community, woman entrepreneurs in rural India, micro enterprises in semi urban and rural India, small shopkeepers, and small manufacturing units across the Indian markets. All these experiences Alok garnered during his professional journey, have enabled him with the skillset of understanding customer behavior & supply chain which is an integral part of Agri tech and helped him to Co-Found Faarms along with his friend Taranbir Singh who is an Agri finance expert.

What inspired you to start your entrepreneurial journey in the e-Commerce marketplace specifically targeted towards farmers?
I am originally from Punjab so during one of my extended stays with my father, I got an opportunity to visit farmers in the absolute interiors of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal belt and realized how cut off from the rest of the world most of them were. I spent time with the farmers, heard about challenges, saw the gaps firsthand and this experience in many ways sowed the seed to explore an end-to-end solution for farmers.

On the other hand, interactions with Agritech companies, I realized that most of them are trying to find a solution across this exclusively geographical driven local market. Since India is so diversified, every cluster or of agriculture is about 40-50 to 70-80 kilometers, and they have some homo geneity. So that's where, the entire country got divided into several clusters, and understanding all those clusters based on crops, availability of market yard, water table, and the opportunity to sell the produce, all these become very important. At the same time a very robust rural supply chain is needed which connects these dots.

So, this is where I thought of building something scalable, which makes sense to the larger geographies and farming community. That's where I believe that the knowledge which I have attained in the last couple of decades, by traveling and understanding multiple geographies & communities across the country became very handy. The zeal to find a solution that is very hyper local and at the same time can scale up across the country and help the 150 million farming population in rural India is what inspires me.

Define Faarms as an organization and its position in the market?
Faarms aspires to become a one stop solution for most of the farming needs of the present day farmer. Since the pedigree of the team is very important in a startup world, our co-founders are equipped with more than 50-60 years of real experience, emphasizing our uniqueness within the industry. While we started our journey by providing them quality Agri inputs, from seeds to fertilizers, agrochemicals to cattle feeds, piggery feeds, poultry feeds and so on, we have now diversified ourselves to provide them quality Agri equipment and machinery at their doorstep. We intend to bring financial literacy amongst them and ensure financial inclusion to engage with multiple financial institutions that can help them to improvise their farming practices. At the same time, we also want to become a very strong knowledge provider for the farmers, so that, they can trust the quality and the quantum of knowledge we are providing to them regularly. We also want to help them in selling their produce at the optimal price.

With a very strong supply chain and logistics warehousing vertical,

where we are creating a hyper rural supply chain ecosystem that is connecting urban India with the power of rural India. As a one-stop shop for all kinds of farmer needs, we want to forge a very strong supply chain where not only us, but other companies who want to sell their products or services to the market or to the farming community can use it to create a distribution without any physical infrastructure.

Tell me about your success mantra that's helping you to arrive at positive outcomes constantly.
The biggest strength we have is our connection with the farmers at a ground level, where we are using a digital model. With the help of the model, we are physically present across the geographies we are handling, and this has helped us build a very strong connection with the farming community. We continue to engage with the farming community daily and at the same time, we use technology to have a fully integrated solution enabled by AI and ML to provide a very customized unique experience to each customer. We are backed by a very strong and fully integrated tech solution run through multiple layers of AI and ML and this has helped us in securing a very strong position in the market. Second, delivery of products at farmers doorstep is helping us build a trusted brand with farmers.

As the COO as well as the Co-Founder of the company, how we are aligning your strategies to match with the company's main goal?
Faarms is the result of the passion that flows in all of us co-founders. So, as I mentioned, all the senior management and most of the CXOs have a very strong and deep-rooted rural background that gives us a unique insight to excel in this field. Our strong background and leadership skills keep us inspired every day to improve, and, we feel immensely satisfied at the end of the day with whatever we are doing to help the farmers of our country.

Alok Duggal, Co-Founder & COO, Faar
After completing his economic honors & human behavior in sociology from Punjab University, Chandigarh, Alok subsequently got exposed to the Rural ecosystem at an early age in his career. He admits that the journey for an entrepreneur can be very challenging and as his greatest strength as well as support, his family as well as his Panjabi roots have helped him to remain a float.

Hobbies:volleyball and badminton
Favorite Cuisine:Italian and Chinese
Favourite Book:'Unstoppable, My Life So Far'by Maria Sharapova
Favourite Travel Destination:
North East & Europe