Sachin Dabarwar (CEO) and Shweta Darbarwar (CMO) of Simply Fresh, an agritech startup, are good examples of talented Indians returning from abroad to uplift India with their unique idea.
The couple started Simply Fresh with the following vison:
“Simply fresh was started with the aim of making available nutritious food that’s also free of chemicals and pesticides.”
In 2013, the duo founded their first hydroponics farm at Shamirpet.
This 9-acre farm catered to Retail and Horeca segments in local markets.
Hydroponics is a way to skip the soil and use different material to support the roots of the plant.
This way crops can be grown directly in nutrient-rich water.
The greenhouses in their farm are digitally controlled by an AI platform called ‘Farm in A Box’ (FiAB).
Sachin and Shweta, who are software engineers by profession, were based in Australia and studying modern Agriculture technology particularly plant-profiling and R&D.
They were working with a group of botanists and struck upon an idea.
In 2018, they raised USD20 million and expanded farming with a 150-acre facility in Arjunpatla, Siddipet.
The agricultural scientists at their farm have combine hydroponic soil-less farming with AI technology.
The farm also produces a full line of Nutra/pharma grade medicinal plants such as turmeric, ginger, shatavari, amaranthus, etc.
Sachin told The Hindu:
“In a country like ours, where we have scarcity of water especially for agricultural use, we can reduce our water consumption drastically by up to 1/10th of the traditional farming water consumption by using hydroponic and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.”
In 2020, they received the CMO Best Brand Of Telangana Award.
Do you think that India and Australia should work together on such sustainable farming practices?
