Hi-Tech Horticulture, is this the future of food security ?

Ever since I penned the article ‘Being Shameless’ I have been in deep cycles of contemplation & exploring new opportunities in agriculture & horticulture, one of the nascent areas where social entrepreneurship can play a very important role. ‘Operation Flood’ of Dr. Verghese Kurien, the father of the white revolution went onto become one of the world’s biggest agricultural development program and took India from being a milk-deficient country to the largest milk producer in the world !

The key elements I can pick up from Dr. Kurien’s success story are the federal structure of collecting milk from almost everyone who owns/rares cattle (cow and buffalo), value addition to the milk collected (making cheese, butter, milk powder and other products apart from basic pasteurization) and creating a market of its own in distribution and door to door delivery. Today I can see many successful private firms duplicating the same 3 key elements from collection to distribution of dairy products across the country.

Horticulture today is in a very nascent stage of growth, with extensive support offered by the Indian government. An offer of 50% subsidy to the farmers/entrepreneurs who wish to explore  setting up horticulture farms acts as a catalyst of growth attracting the educated class to explore farming as a profession.  Creating food security globally is becoming one of the key prime movers for any nation dreaming to become an economically stable country.

I am exploring the possibility of duplicating the 3 key elements of success from Dr. Kurien, into the field of horticulture. What I mean by this is that every square foot of land owned by a farmer/individual can be utilized to grow horticulture crops, and create a channel for him/her to sell the grown products, create value addition by processing these and open new distribution channels of our own to sell these products directly to the consumer, thus avoiding the middle men. This process will ensure that the farmer who grows these horticulture crops gets the best market value, compelling him/her to invest more time and effort to grow more, adding value to these grown products by way of  processing these raw materials to semi-finished or finished products will translate into better returns and using various delivery channels like e-commerce portal, door to door selling, counter sales etc we are ensuring that the products reach the customers in the shortest possible time (thus keeping it fresh).

Now I do have several barriers to overcome to convert this into a successful operating model.  Some key barriers I would foresee are the kind of funds required to setup workable end to end process (some kind of ERP based supply chain management process may be required to track from germinating seeds to the final sales), value addition is tricky and expensive which can either be at the grower’s end (semi processed food) or at the consumer’s end (ready to eat products), and distribution is a labor intensive educating process (most often fails here).