Resilient Agroforestry for BOP Farmers

SAI’s one acre climate resilient, regenerative agroforestry together with IoT & Blockchain technology lifts BoP farmers out of extreme poverty by transforming their degraded lands with intercropping of traditional crops together with paired rows of high value tree plantation.

SAI mobilizes; trains, provides quality agritech inputs; financial and logistic support with direct market access to BoP farmers. Rural unemployed youth are recruited and trained as Community Resource Persons(CRPs) to provide handholding support to farmer groups. During cultivation, maintenance and harvesting period, landless people, returnee migrants are provided wage employment.

Farmers become valuable partners for industries that rely on agricultural produce for raw materials, thus gaining income and food security from previously unproductive land. The model is already being replicated in India & Africa, and on a global scale will integrate millions of farmers directly into the corporate value chain, alleviating poverty, improving access to nutritional produce, and reducing desertification globally.

Addressing a vicious circle of land degradation, global warming and livelihoods insecurity through technology-based solutions that help communities to restore, sustain, and benefit from resilient ecosystems.

About two-thirds of the developing world’s 3 billion rural people live in about 475 million small farm households, working on land plots smaller than 2 hectares. Agriculture is their largest source of livelihood. Low productivity together with lack of access to improved technology, finance, support services and assured markets are the main limiting factors for them. They over-use natural resources to survive, thus contributing to land degradation, deforestation, food scarcity, and ultimately to increasing of earth's temperature & global warming. Small farmers are more directly dependent on nature  and have less capacity to adapt to the changing climate.

In India, more than 82% farmers are from small & marginal category; in Odisha, where we work, 50-60% of them are indigenous communities. The level of poverty is so high that they do not have access to two proper meals a day (anemia rates in children are as high as 73%), are forced to mortgage/sell land and distress migrate. In Africa, where we are scaling the model, is no different.

Our solution, which combines indigenous knowledge & traditional practices with scientific knowledge, has created sustainable livelihoods for thousands of BoP families, while addressing global warming and climate change. We have successfully replicated and are scaling-up the impact through collaboration and mentoring to social entrepreneurs across Asia and Africa.

While converting each hectare of land into productive one, SAI sequesters 90 MT carbon per hectare (as per UNFCCC assessment); and produces a minimum of 1 ton of nutritious food (millet, pulses) through regenerative agriculture from previously degraded, unproductive land. It relies heavily on ancestral technology, GAP, biotechnology, and data collection software.

Our model is a finalist in BRICS solution award; and selected by SEED-Uno among the best Eco-inclusive sustainable business model for replication in African continent. SAI's team providing mentoring support to young social entrepreneurs from Ghana, Uganda, and South Africa for model replication

We are working towards geo-tagging fields for monitoring and assessing CO2 sequestration with AI technology partners. With IoT we plan to capture sensory information and pictures that can be shared on the blockchain network for other nodes. The use of smart contracts generated on the blockchain network will help in facilitating payments to suppliers, logistics and buyers.

More than 90% of our target population belong to small & marginal category from indigenous community. Almost 100% are living below poverty line. SAI combines indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK) with scientific technology in most innovative manner.

At field level, SAI mobilizes; trains and provides quality agritech inputs; and financial and logistic support with direct market access to the BoP farmers. Rural unemployed youth are recruited and trained as Community Resource Persons (CRPs) to provide handholding support to farmer groups. SAI engages landless people in wage employment during cultivation, maintenance and harvesting period. As such, it not only enables small landholders but also landless families and rural unemployed youth to enhance and sustain their livelihoods.

SAI's model has been validated, and its been in revenue generation mode since 2018. SAI aims to reach 1 million BoP farmers by scaling the model through collaboration, networking and partnerships. It not only provide pro-bono mentoring support in replication, but also work with social entrepreneurs/organization to mobilize funding for scaling up.

Our solution impacts the following:

✔   Small & marginal farmers, mostly from indigenous/tribal communities: Small farmers with 1 acre land move from Below Poverty Line (BPL) by earning more than US$1.92 (Rs.125) per day within four years period besides getting nutritious food through intercropping.

✔   Landless Labourers: Generates 100 person days of wage employment per acre to landless people during cultural practices; harvesting & transportation of matured agricultural produce

✔   Educated, Unemployed Rural Youth: By training and employing rural youth as Community Resource Person SAI provides full time employment to them.

✔   Service Providers – Transporters; tractor owners; inputs providers by engaging them with small farmers and paying for their services on behalf of the farmers

✔   Agrarian Industries: Replace import and save foreign currency by growing and supplying raw materials near to the industries

The World is facing multiple problems. While on the one side, issues like global warming, climate change, land degradation are threatening ecosystem equilibrium, on the other hand, rising poverty, food scarcity and shrinking livelihoods opportunity have threatened human survival. 

SAI, through its technology-based solution, addresses above issues in noble way. While the regenerative agroforestry on degraded land provide food, nutrition & income security to the BoP families, it also captures carbon and convert degraded land into productive ones.  SAI team is partnering with social entrepreneurs; and training and mentoring them to adapt and scale the model in their regions.

SAI has promoted a sustainable enterprise, which is working in several states of India as well as African countries. Through the use of technology like IoT and blockchain, it aims to scale significantly in several other countries, reaching 1 million BoP farmers by 2030.

SAI has been working with the approach and model for over 8 years. SAI revenues are being re-invested for the next round of farmers. The earlier rounds of farmers continue getting the benefits due to coppice/regenerative nature of plantation and seed availability through community based seed production.

The model has been validated in India by NITI Aayog of Government of India; by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI)

At international level, SAI is finalist of BRICS solution award. SEED, a donor platform promoted by UNDP, UNEP, and EU has adjudged SAI model as proven business model from eco-inclusive enterprises around the world.

We are leading with our unique model of agroforestry on degraded land with following value adds (i) value for money (ii) regularity of income to farmers (iii) easy access to SAI’s technical experts (iv) lower operational cost by engaging local rural youth. In time through our transparent and fair practices, we have also turned our competitors into collaborators.Our innovation falls under the following categories:

1. Process innovation: SAI integrates remotely located smallholder farmers into a corporate value chain where they grow traditional crops next to pulpwood in paired rows in agroforestry. The business process is oriented to work in an offline-online mode.
2. Technology innovation: This low cost, one acre agroforestry uses biotechnology. These include clonal sapling technology, seed optimization, soil analysis and testing and fertilizer optimization. We plan to integrate with IoT and Blockchain.
3. Ecosystem innovation: SAI inclusive business approach brings to the farmer's doorstep: training & capacity building; access to finance, machinery; quality inputs together with farming technologies, technical monitoring and market access.
4. Workflow innovation: SAI has designed and implemented innovative Community Resource Persons (CRPs) where it identifies and trains unemployed rural youths and then places them back in the community. These CRPs, in turn, identify, mobilize and provide training and technical monitoring support to 7-8 clusters of 10-12 farmers each for which they receive monthly honorarium and performance incentives

We are currently operating in 5 countries across Asia and Africa. In the next 5 years we plan to operate at scale in at least 10 countries, also expanding to South America. Our aim is to have a minimum of 250,000 small farmer households within this model in 10 years. This would mean impacting at least 1.25 million people directly and another 500,000 people as part of the complete supply chain. Our model is proven and can be taken from one region and implemented across any other region, depending on climatic conditions and the local demand of the produce. We are following a two pronged approach for scaling up:

1. Direct implementation through CRPs in India, thereby reaching about 10,000 families in five years here;
2. Mentoring young social entrepreneurs in other countries and replicating the model through them.

 Therefore, our goals within next year are:

1. Scale-up the model in South Africa, Ghana, Uganda and Bangladesh where SAI model has already been piloted;
2. Pilot the model in identified areas of Himachal Pradesh & Uttarakhand states of India with clonal apple rootstock as plantation, and beans & other  vegetables as intercrops.
3. Pilot the model in Bihar and Jharkhand states of India with herbal trees (Arjun) and shrubs (Mentha and lemon grass)
4. Identify and select additional promising social entrepreneurs in these four countries and start mentoring them

 Our goal within five years is to scale up the models and reach 50,000 small farmers’ families at BoP.

Impact for us is measured by a number of impact metrics. We have a Theory of Change which identifies key impact areas, outputs and outcomes, and these metrics are analyzed on a regular basis. The  progress report with processing of the achievements is forwarded to HQ every month. We conduct annual impact measurement using Acumen LeanData method. Below are a few of the impact metrics that are measured:

Farmers incorporated into the value chain

Degraded land reclaimed

Food security to families

Trees planted

Food crop produced

Crop Productivity Increase

Carbon Sequestration

Full time: 10

Part time: 8

Interns: 5

Contractors: 10

Other workers: 100+

Volunteers: 6 volunteers are assisting us in different domains such as social media, fundraising, as well as business plan development for our African partners.

Our multidisciplinary team brings together agroforestry, innovative digital solutions, and proven community mobilization techniques. Some of our team members have been working with ethnic communities for decades, and are well versed with the socio-cultural complexities that need to be addressed in order to create a long-term, sustainable impact. 

Jitendra Sinha is the CEO of SAI, and has been working in the field of Agriculture and Rural Development for more than 25 years. A triple Masters in Agriculture, Rural Development & Development Planning, he has served as Chief Technical Adviser to UNDP/GEF, Ministry of Agriculture in Iran, in addition to being a Senior Adviser for the World Bank/IFC Farm Forestry Programme in India. He established SAI with the aim to develop a truly inclusive, and sustainable business model that uplifts people at BoP globally. He has also been mentoring entrepreneurs in resilient agriculture supply chain development across Asia & Africa. 

Vaibhav Sharma is the Founder Director of SAI SPC USA. An innovator and a technology executive, he has led large transformational programs for the Banking and Financial Services Industry across the globe. He has partnered with fintech to deliver solutions in emerging technologies like cloud, blockchain and IoT. 

Shivani Prasad is the Founder Director of SAI India. She brings in more than 15 years of teaching experience and has worked with rural women for their social & economic upliftment around India.

Deepshikha Dalchand is a biotechnology engineer who has implemented community-based rural tourism and livelihood generation projects in several states.

SAI’s aims to promote an equitable and inclusive society that embraces diversity and empowers everyone, without being discriminated against on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, or ethnic origin.

SAI’s leadership team include management and advisory team. As management level, SAI’s Director, Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) and Field Coordinators are female, and SAI aspires to bring more women and people from indigenous/marginalized communities into the team. At international level, SAI is promoting a Board of Advisors which include head of all its partners organizations from different countries. 

SAI work exclusively with Indigenous Peoples from small landholders; landless and rural unemployed youth. The decision-making authority lies with them, and SAI guide and provide support to enable and empower them.

If our solution gets selected by Solve, the funding will give us the opportunity to conduct further community mobilization in our region of operations, thus allowing us to expand our network and integrate more farmers into our agroforestry model. A portion of the prize money will be utilized to purchase sensors for geotagging in the fields, as well as in developing Phase 1 of the blockchain platform. The chance to secure additional capital will provide us the opportunity to implement our agroforestry model in other states in India as well as other countries. This will help us to generate income and food security for BoP communities worldwide.

 Being a part of the Solve network will open a lot of doors for us. The increased visibility will give us access to networking and partnership opportunities that will help us to enhance our on-ground impact. The opportunity to be mentored for 9 months will be invaluable in helping us streamline our operations further, especially with the technology integrations that we are planning on implementing.

All the money raised through investors and additional funding avenues will go towards scaling the operations into funding more farmers, hiring local operational help and technology.We have elaborately benchmarked data for every acre. There are defined ROIs that we can deliver to our investors, partners and farmers.

Board Members and Advisors will help us with sharpening the revenue model, as well as provide us with outreach. In particular, we are looking for Advisors who can assist us with their regional expertise that will enable us to implement our model in new areas. Mentors and partners with expertise in marketing and PR will be invaluable to help us expand our social media presence further, as well as connect with potential collaborators. Some of the products we sell are in high demand in urban areas, and a more robust social media platform will enable us to connect with more customers as well

The funding that we raise , we will be used to develop technological solutions to enable the scaling of the operation. This would mean taking the solution to the cloud , integrating blockchain network for supply chain along with IOT and robotics for remote data sensing and collection.

SAI would like to engage MIT to partner for Advisory and fundraising support across the globe. We would like to engage with people who can help us with international programs and partners and with implementing our model in other regions. We would like to particularly partner with Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab

 SAI would continue to look for partners that are committed to the same cause. An example would be - International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) - They invest in rural people, empowering them to increase their food security, improve the nutrition of their families and increase their incomes.

Our solution is inclusive for all demographics and is related to the very basic of using scientific methods of agriculture. We have seen value that can be delivered in generating employment and increasing food production during pandemic, when there was a reverse migration challenge in highly populated country like India.

Since the labor can be utilized where the Agro forestry model is applied, it opens up doors for employment with proper mentoring and skill training and in due course even improving the living standards.

We operate on a diversified B2B and B2C model to maximize profits for SAI and the farmers. Via our B2B model, SAI partners with agrarian industries, providing assured supply of raw materials within their core area of operations at no upfront cost.

Our solution is inclusive for all demographics and is related to the very basic of using scientific methods of agriculture. We have seen value that can be delivered in generating employment and increasing food production during pandemic, when there was a reverse migration challenge in highly populated country like India. With our model, within a decade, our farmers earn upwards of $3050 per acre from their once degraded lands. In addition, landless and returnee migrants are also employed throughout the farming cycle. 

Our model places the farmers first and tackling the core issues they face: 1. lack of productivity 2. lack of sustainable livelihood 3. lack of nutritional food. Our model revives their degraded lands and restores the fertility, while ensuring sustainable income sources via guaranteed market linkages with industry partners. Our model also incorporates traditional food crops to tackle malnutrition within farmer families. Our aim is to empower the local communities by creating long term sustainable livelihood opportunities right within the localities, reducing migration and alleviating poverty. 

If chosen, we would utilize the funding to develop our blockchain solution, and incorporate complete transparency within our supply chain.