5M Farmer - Chennai Parthiban - Ajay Haridas Friend

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5 Minute Farmers - New Farmer Onboarding - Parthiban: Meeting Minutes: 30-May-2020

I got a chance to speak to Parthiban and Ajay last night (on 30-May-2020).

I am documenting the details about the 5 Minute Farmers initiative and then the topics we discussed.

I 5 MINUTE FARMERS

Our objective is to help the high quality produce from producers reach the homes of the consumers.

In the process, we want to make sure producers are always profitable and consumers get the peace of mind about the quality of the produce.

More details can be read at http://5minutefarmers.com .

I am sharing the Five Minutes Selling Price Calculator link ( https://fiveminutes.in/calculator ) for future reference. I have also explained about our transparency model as well as the pricing model.

II FARM DETAILS

Parthiban has a farm near Vaniyambadi (I think Natrampalli in Vellore district) where his team takes care of the cultivation process.

We spoke primarily about milk, elakki banana and coconuts. I have shared the Farmer Produce Availability (FPA) sheet and requested for information so that we can onboard them.

Next Steps:
a. Parthiban to fill up the Farmer Produce Availability information for all the produces that he intends to bring into the 5 Minute Farmers network.
b. Parthiban to also provide details about production cost involved in each produce.
c. 5 Minute Producer Coordination team to onboard the producer (getting paid samples, getting rates, validate and approve).

III MILK
They have about 150 cows and are getting about 1000 litres of milk every day. The topic was to see if we can get the milk to be sent to Chennai on a daily basis.

The idea will be to get the milk that was milked in the afternoon, process it (pasteurisation is still a topic not confirmed), load it in temperature controlled vehicles and send to Chennai. The goal will be to deliver milk the next morning between 4am and 6am at doorsteps in Chennai.

This delivery team will be independent of the vegetable/fruits delivery team.

We discussed about getting bottles to be used for this purpose.

We spoke about the possibility of Parthiban and team arranging for the temperature controlled transportation to Padi centre and also the possibility of 5 Minute Farmers team sending their temperature controlled vehicle to Vaniyambadi.

We will have to think and plan the model to effectively deliver it to doorsteps in Chennai before 6am.

As we have not handled milk in the past, I suggested that the Five Minutes team will pilot this in a region closer to our Padi centre (eg. Anna Nagar) for a small set of users as a pilot test and then learn and scale from there.

Will have to discuss the finer details. (We also spoke briefly about other value added products such as butter, Khoa etc - but I have requested that to be on hold so we can have full focus on milk.)

Next Steps:
a. Parthiban to find out what would it take to get pasteurised milk. (I know we discussed only fresh milk, but many would prefer milk to be pasteurised if it is not milked right in front of them.)
b. Parthiban to provide details about FPA, production cost etc.

IV ELAKKI BANANA

There is about 7 acres of land on which about 4300 Elakki banana trees were planted.

The seeds were obtained from Hosur and are of the highest quality (costing about Rs.40/- per kg). They have now become trees that are about 7 ft tall.

About 600 to 700 trees are planted roughly in one acre of land.

They use drip irrigation techniques. They also give a good amount of space between the trees and use a weed cutter to remove all the weed to improve the efficiency of water consumption.

There was a storm last month due to which many trees feel down. About 3500+ trees are remaining after the latest storm.

They are selling it locally there at the farm at Rs.40/- per kg. I was surprised as I am familiar with the whole 'tharu' used as unit for measuring the rates, but Parthiban clarified that while 'tharu' is used as unit of measure for all other varieties, for elakki alone it is measured by kgs only.

Every week we can start expecting elakki bananas as well as banana stem to be available.

Next Steps:
a. Parthiban to provide the approximate production cost details for Elakki on a one acre space.
b. Parthiban to provide details about FPA, production cost etc.

V COCONUTS

Parthiban also briefly spoke about coconuts. Have requested him to provide more details. More on this later after we receive the details.

Next Steps:
a. Parthiban to provide details about FPA, production cost etc.

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