How India’s AgriTech Pioneer Is Shaping the Future of Farming at Gulfood Green 2024

As Gulfood Green 2024 approaches, DeHaat, India’s leading agritech innovator, is set to captivate with its groundbreaking blend of technology and sustainability. Known for its expansive network of over 2.7 million farmers, DeHaat is transforming agriculture by integrating AI-driven solutions with hands-on support, ensuring top-quality, pesticide-free produce year-round. In this exclusive interview, Rohit Sareen, Senior Vice President - Output, from DeHaat reveals how their approach is reshaping the agricultural landscape.

• Tell us about DeHaat and the platform.

DeHaat is India’s largest full-stack, technology-based business-to-farmers (B2F) platform that caters to all farmers’ needs, offering them 360-degree solutions across the agri value chain. DeHaat helps farmers adopt to sustainable agricultural practices and provides safe products to consumers across the globe. Associated with more than 2.7 million farmers, DeHaat is today one of India’s largest exporters of a comprehensive range of fruits and vegetables. This includes grapes, pomegranates, bananas, baby corn, chilli and mango. With the aim of becoming a one-stop partner for retailers, food processors and catering sectors, DeHaat have developed a versatile portfolio of added-value products comprising of fruit and vegetables of all types from fresh cut to frozen, steamed,  canned, pulps and pastes.  DeHaat controls the complete value chain of its product to supply pesticide-residue-free, top-quality produce to its customers throughout the year.

• How does your technology enhance farming practices and product quality?

DeHaat, with its ‘Farmer’s First’ vision keeps farmers at the core of everything it does. DeHaat’s ‘Phygital’ encompasses digital outreach through its ‘DeHaat Kisan App’ clubbed with last mile physical presence in the form of DeHaat Centres. We leverage technology to offer farmers a wide array of services including weather alerts, spraying service access, satellite-based farm monitoring, insurance and financing as well as market linkage at the touch of a button. This technology coupled with physical visits of our agronomists acts as a one-stop solution to offer all necessary agricultural value chain services a farmer requires throughout the complete crop cycle.

• With a network of over 2.7 million farmers, how do you ensure the adoption of sustainable practices and maintain high standards across such a large scale?

Together with our farmer network, we seek to achieve environmental and social sustainability. From an environmental standpoint, we encourage the use of natural agri-inputs and bio-pesticides in Integrated Pest Management. This Zero Residue Farming method is safe for farmers, the environment, and customers who will consume the final products. Finally, this improves the farmers' livelihoods by providing an assured income through market linkage (guaranteed procurement of their produce) and access to large farmer groups.

• How does your technology ensure traceability and transparency in the supply chain?

DeHaat follows a unique and robust process starting from farmer identification to product dispatch to ensure the full traceability of its products. Every step of this process is recorded in our in-house traceability platform which is accessible to our customers via a QR code printed on each pack. It’s crucial that we’re fully transparent with our customers, so they know that what they consume was grown in a sustainable manner for both the farmers and the environment, packed/processed following international norms of food safety and hygiene and is pesticide-residue free.

• As a major exporter of diverse produce, how does DeHaat meet international quality standards and adapt to global markets?

DeHaat’s portfolio is Global GAP, BRC, SMETA and GRASP certified confirming our implementation of international quality standards. Moreover, we follow the Food Safety rules and regulations of the destination markets by complying with their respective pesticides’ Maximum Residue Limits. Apart from these “classic” requirements, DeHaat aimed at achieving higher sustainability and ethical standards and is BSCI, Fairtrade, LEAF, SPRING (Global GAP add-on module) certified.

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Visit DeHaat stand at Za'abeel Hall 2, Z2-H2, Gulfood Green 2024 from 24 – 26 September 2024 at the Dubai World Trade Centre to see how they are leading the way in sustainable agriculture and food safety. Register Today.