Aharam Traditional Crop Producer's Company Limited
Aharam Traditional Crop Producers Company Limited" (registered under the Companies Act ‐‐2001 amendment) is a farmer owned organization dedicated towards increasing and sustaining rural incomes by empowering small farmers and rural entrepreneurs through the coordination of Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and the delivery of integrated value chain services. Aharam combines market access for rural products, collective purchasing from suppliers, access to credit and capacity building (both technical and business) through a coordinated network of NGO partners.
Aharam addresses the multiple production, value‐adding, and marketing challenges faced by small farmers by leveraging the “Aharam” brand name. This acts as an umbrella identity for all associated partners (NGOs, Community Based Organisations, Self Help Groups). This structure allows Aharam partners to function as a coordinated entity, thus enabling participants to increase their leverage in the market, achieve economies of scale, and increase profitability. Aharam believes this structure is the best long‐term strategy for creating expanded markets, increasing capacity, generating investment, empowering entrepreneurs, decreasing farmer costs and increasing rural incomes.
Aharam’s strategy is designed to accomplish the following:
• To increase both productivity and crop quality, while decreasing input costs
• To build an efficient infrastructure for storage, post‐harvest processing and marketing
• To extend the sales season and help farmers obtain optimum returns on their investments through direct market access and interstate trade.
Using a combination of bulk selling to gain access to wholesale buyers, interstate trade to maximize value added processing profits, collective purchasing for discounted input supplies and targeted technical support to introduce competitive practices and sustainable technologies, Aharam has fostered the expansion of dry land agriculture, driven by real market demands and opportunities.
Aharam has a profit sharing business model that links 3 levels of the agricultural economy:
1) Markets wholesale buyers, retailers and input suppliers
2) Capacity building NGOs – business development and technical service providers
3) Community Based Organizations (CBOs) ‐ rural producers and processors
Aharam and its’ partner NGO, the Covenant Center for Development (CCD), have created a coordinated system that has proven to reduce farming costs by 20% (savings from pesticides, fertilizers and seeds) while simultaneously raising farmers’ income by 20% (10% increase in yield and a 10% increase due to direct sales to buyers).
This was accomplished through the management of 4 main activities:
1) The formation of organized CBOs
2) The delivery field training to participating farmers
3) The implementation of Community Facility Centers (CFCs)
4) The creation of Business Development Services Teams to support and facilitate CBOs’ access to market
As of 2007, more than 100 farmers, 600 women from 242 villages are directly benefiting from this operation. Apart from sales Aharam has also set up Business
Development Services (BDS) to impart training to farmers in low cost farming and teach traditional recipes that have been long forgotten or on the verge of disuse.
Aharam intends to replicate the Aharam / Covenant Center for Development business model across the country. CCD has identified 12 NGOs (that are currently working with farm groups), who will organize local farm groups into CBOs and unify them under the "Aharam" brand name.
CCD will assist all partnering NGOs to organize CBOs, deliver field trainings, and implement Community Facility Centers (CFC) supported by BDS teams. This will be accomplished through a combination of project design training, implementation consulting, operations monitoring and periodic project evaluations.
The Aharam / CCD Business Model works through a network of NGO partners that coordinates CBOs to collectively purchase inputs, process outputs and uniformly brand their product. The NGOs then facilitate the sale of the processed goods to Aharam’s wholesale buyers or regional and local retailers under the “Aharam” brand name. Aharam Company manages these transactions through logistical coordination with bulk buyers and partner NGOs. Aharam also engages in the wholesale purchase of CBO output for value added resale (higher profit margins are obtained in the products’ off season or in regions where the product is in high demand).