As part of the agri export workshop, participants were given an in-depth exposure to Sahyadri Farms, one of India’s most successful Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs), located in Nashik. The visit began with a comprehensive overview of the organization’s journey, presented through insightful documentaries that illustrated its growth from a grape export company to a fully integrated horticultural value chain. Established in 2010, Sahyadri Farms now supports over 18,000 registered farmers across 31,000 acres, dealing in nine major crops. Participants learned how this FPC has created a strong system for growing, processing, packaging, and exporting nine major crops while ensuring that farmers get fair returns for their hard work. During the technical sessions, valuable insights were shared by representatives from NABARD, APEDA, and Sahyadri Farms, highlighting the role of institutional collaboration in promoting agri-exports. These sessions were both informative and motivating for the women farmers and FPO leaders from Rajasthan.

Further, Ms. Pooja Kadam led the participants through Sahyadri’s state-of-the-art processing, packaging, and production units, offering first hand exposure to world-class agri-export infrastructure. These facilities demonstrated the company’s commitment to quality assurance, global compliance, and value addition, crucial for competing in international markets. The participants got the chance to visit the pack house facility of grapes, AGMARK lab control room, freezing, drying unit, Kissan processing unit and warehouse of 2500 MT sq ft.

Shri Vilas Shinde, Founder and Managing Director of Sahyadri Farms, shared his personal journey and the core philosophy behind the organization’s success. With a background in agricultural engineering and a vision to uplift rural livelihoods, he emphasized the five pillars essential for transforming agriculture: organized markets, access to capital, use of technology, robust infrastructure, and building a dedicated team. Sahyadri’s infrastructure spans over 110 acres, equipped with technical facilities and connected to 465 FPOs across the region.

Shri Shinde also spoke about the organization’s future focus on developing blockchain-based technologies to bridge the gap between farmers and consumers. This digital initiative aims to create a transparent and efficient ecosystem that strengthens FPO aggregation and market linkage, empowering producers while enhancing consumer trust.

The visit to Sahyadri Farms was not just an eye-opener for the participants but also a strong motivation to replicate scalable, inclusive, and technology-driven agri-business models in their own regions.

During their visit to Sahyadri Farms, the group from the Jodhpur–Nashik Agri-Export Exchange Program was warmly welcomed by Shri Pritish Kaare, who gave them a guided tour of the TATA Strive Skill Development Centre. This centre is a joint effort by TATA Strive and Sahyadri Farms, and is part of the Sahyadri Rural Development Foundation (SRDF). It was started in 2019 to help train rural youth and farmers in modern farming techniques and to build their confidence as future entrepreneurs.

Shri Suresh Lokande explained that the centre mainly focuses on three things: skill development, training and supporting Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), and overall rural development. The centre offers practical courses to young people, especially those between the ages of 18 to 35, so they can learn new skills and improve their chances of building better livelihoods in agriculture. The training programmes here are well-structured and focus on hands-on learning, making it easier for the participants to apply these skills in their real-life farming practices.

The work at this centre revolves around three main areas:

• Skill Development – where youth and farmers are taught various vocational and practical skills to improve their livelihoods.
• Training and Incubation for FPOs – where Farmer Producer Organizations are trained on how to function better, manage operations, and connect with markets.
• Rural Development – where the overall goal is to uplift rural communities by providing them with tools, knowledge, and confidence to grow.

One unique course here is called “TATA Karta Shitkari”, which is specially designed to help farmers improve their mindset and become more confident, forward-thinking leaders in their fields.

The centre also has its own computer lab, where participants can learn about new technologies and digital tools used in farming today. This gives farmers and youth a chance to stay updated and compete in the modern agricultural world.

For the group from Rajasthan, this visit was one of the highlights of the trip. It gave them a real-life example of how training and education can bring big changes to farming communities. Many of them left feeling inspired to start similar training programs back home, with the goal of helping more farmers and young people grow, learn, and succeed.

A Buyer-Seller Meet of pomegranate producing farmers and exporters was organized in Balotra, Rajasthan by Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, Agri-Export Facilitation Center of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Shiv Kisan Producer Company Limited, Buriwada, Agricultural University and South Asia Biotechnology Centre, Jodhpur on January 20, 2024.

During the meet of pomegranate producing farmers and exporters, 75 pomegranate farmers and a dozen exporters participated in which well-known exporters of the country like Kay Bee Exports, Agrostar-INI Farms, Sam Agritech, D M Enterprises, Prime Fresh Limited, Varsha Food Products, Reliance Fresh, RDZ Foods, and Big Basket participated. During BSM, an agreement was signed between exporters and farmers to purchase about 2500 metric tons of pomegranate. Exporters showed great interest in purchasing exportable pomegranate and pomegranate seeds produced in Rajasthan.

While conducting the program, Dr. Bhagirath Chaudhary, Founder Director, South Asia Biotechnology Center and NABARD AEFC expressed his views on the market system of pomegranate and the action plan to ensure higher prices to the farmers and along with the government market system in Balotra also requested to establish pre-cooling and cold storage facility.

Shri CS Dudeja, Regional Head, APEDA discussed the quality standards in the national and international market while guiding and counseling the farmers and exporters. Also gave information about Registration cum Membership Certificate (RCMC) for export of products under Buyer-Seller Meet.

Dr. B.R. as chief guest. Choudhary, Vice Chancellor, Agricultural University, Jodhpur, in the program emphasized on the importance of pomegranate growers to export good quality fruits by using good production technology and paying attention to fruit weight, fruit color and seed color. Along with this, he urged for irrigation scheduling, crop diversification and proper harvesting.

Presiding over the program, Shri Sushil Kumar, District Collector, Balotra said that he will take action as per rules for market arrangement and facility of pre-cooling and cold storage. District Collector Shri Sushil Kumar advised the farmers to make full use of the facilities of micro irrigation system and agricultural techniques. Along with this, a checklist of parameters of export quality fruits of pomegranate has been prepared for the convenience of the farmers and best wishes to the farmers for their participation in export.

The Agri Export Facilitation Centre of NABARD in collaboration with the South Asia Biotechnology Centre (SABC), Jodhpur organized farmers visit to KVK Baramati, in June 2023 with the objective of guiding pomegranate growers and motivating other farmers to diversify their cropping towards pomegranate cultivation. The team along with twenty farmers from different FPO’s including NABARD FPO, Shiv Kisan FPO and Argonaut. The aim of the program is to provide farmers the opportunity to enrich their existing knowledge by visiting different ICAR institutions, interaction with scientists and capacity building mass learning, enabling progressive farmers from distant locations to visit field demos, experiential learning, pilot plant exposure and on-farm training. The farmers got first-hand experience of current research being undertaken by the institute and provided them with a clear contrast in farming practices.

The “Anar Shodh Yatra” not only provided a platform to farmers of Western Rajasthan but also arranged physical meetings, interactions, engagement, intensive training with key stakeholders with participation of the large numbers of farmers and institutions.