Revolutionizing Agriculture: Pankaj Mahalle’s Inspiring Journey to Uplift Farmers

Pankaj Mahalle‘s voice is filled with emotion as he recounts the hardships faced by his parents during the festival of Diwali. “I don’t remember how many Diwalis my parents couldn’t keep their promise of gifting me new clothes,” he says. Pankaj is the first graduate in his family and hails from Warud, a village in the Yavatmal district of Maharashtra, a region globally known for its distressing number of farmer suicides.

Pankaj’s father owned four acres of agricultural land, primarily cultivating cotton, which yielded a decent output. However, their struggles began after the harvest. Moneylenders would descend upon their home, seizing a significant portion of their produce. The absence of a storage facility in their village forced them to sell their crops quickly, often at unreasonably low prices compared to market rates. “Farmers received the lowest rates, perpetuating the cycle of debt,” Pankaj laments. Despite a lifetime of hard work, his father could never afford to buy him a cotton shirt, a poignant reminder of their financial struggles.

For Shweta Thakare, born in the same Yavatmal district, the story is tragically similar. Her parents owned a small piece of land but were eventually forced to migrate to the city due to mounting debts. Shweta, who holds a degree in electronics and telecommunication from Amravati University and a Masters in development studies from IIT Hyderabad, could have embarked on a comfortable corporate career. However, her past experiences haunted her, and she was determined to make a difference in the lives of struggling farmers.

In 2009, Pankaj Mahalle founded ‘Kastkar,’ a social organization that worked closely with government departments, educated farmers about government-run schemes, and ran a mobile-based helpline for farmers in Yavatmal district. A year later, Shweta Thakare joined Kastkar, and together they continued this work until 2013. Four years later, Pankaj realized that he needed more academic knowledge to make a profound impact. He pursued a master’s degree in livelihood and social entrepreneurship at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, followed by three years of work with tribal communities in Jamshedpur.

In 2018, Pankaj and Shweta returned to their village, driven by their shared goal to improve the lives of farmers. Over the next two years, they experimented with various social enterprise models. Some succeeded, some failed, but none could achieve a significant impact. During this period, Pankaj also encountered various facets of “impact investing,” with some investors questioning the impact and returns, while others doubted the purpose.

Acumen, a New York-based social impact fund, came to the rescue. They provided $70,000 through the Acumen Emergency Fund, allowing Pankaj to join the Acumen Fellows Programme in 2020 alongside 20 other social innovators. This support aimed to help enterprises serve their communities’ immediate needs during the pandemic and continue their long-term work. Acumen Academy’s intensive leadership development program further honed Pankaj’s skills and commitment to a “farmers-first” approach.

GramHeet, the agritech start up co-founded by Pankaj Mahalle and Shweta Thakare, offers a disruptive and differentiated solution to the challenges faced by smallholder farmers. These farmers often find themselves trapped in a cycle of debt and distress selling due to the lack of post-harvest storage facilities, the urgency for cash during harvest, and the absence of post-harvest infrastructure in villages.

GramHeet addresses these problems by providing decentralised storage facilities at the village level through smart storage bins in GramHeet Mandi (Village Trade Centers). Farmers can store their produce at an affordable cost and receive a digital receipt along with a quality analysis report. The start up also offers post-harvest credit, allowing farmers to access instant credit against their stored produce. Lastly, GramHeet provides market linkage, enabling farmers to sell their produce directly to end buyers through a mobile app. The impact of GramHeet has already reached around 4,000 farmers in 91 villages across Yavatmal and Akola districts. Pankaj and Shweta plan to expand their reach across Maharashtra and into Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Pankaj Mahalle and Shweta Thakare are on a mission to transform the identity of Yavatmal, a district known for all the wrong reasons. They aim to be the positive change the district and its farmers desperately need. Pankaj acknowledges the challenges, particularly the need to build a self-sustaining social enterprise model, but he is confident that they are on the right path. “We have sowed the right seed,” he says, “and we are confident of reaping the right harvest.”

Pankaj Mahalle and Shweta Thakare’s journey is an inspiring tale of resilience and determination in the face of adversity. Their efforts to uplift struggling farmers are creating a positive impact and bringing hope to the lives of those who need it most.