In the dynamic technological era, where rural youth are shifting to urban areas in search of better opportunities, we have some astonishing people who are making rural areas a wonderful place to live in. We have seen India's nextgen pushing up the boundaries and shining in various sphere but today we have brought in a trio who have already set their standards high and now applying innovation in their own hometown Goa back from zero.
These 3 Engineers -cum- agri- Entrepreneurs,Ajay Naik, Jagdish Naik and Sandeep Metri, may not be driving in a luxury air conditioned sedans but certainly farms in an air conditioned medium.
Meet Ajay Naik- who quit his high flying job, sold his million dollar startup to become a hydrophonic farmer. He is a former Persistent employee and had two successful startups under his belt. His first startup was in collaboration with Lucio Misquita called L&T Tech, was sold to a German company for 1 million Euro's.
These three cousins together started Letcetra Agritech in Jan 2016. This was Goa's first indoor hydroponic farm growing high quality, pesticide-free vegetables.
Ajay Naik, sans his high flying career and decided to take up hydrophonics- a cultivation technique of growing vegetables in water. This technique not only helps them deal with water scarcity but even increased the produce without use of harmful pesticides.
Ajay Naik looks after core hydrophonics technique, its application & marketing say- " we have started growing Bell Peppers, Cucumbers, Cherry Tomato's, Other Vegetables and even strawberries".
"It was inspiring and motivated me to start a farm of my own as well. The fact that hydroponics involves technology, like developing a system for automatic circulation of water, controlling the parameters of temperature, humidity, etc. made me like it even more. I have been working in the IT industry for the past 10 years and I understand these things. In fact, it would have been difficult for me to understand traditional forms of agriculture,"
All the operations work ranging from raw materials to supply is managed by Sandeep Metri- an electrical engineer by education. While Jagdish Naik takes care of Production.
Views Of Incorporating Of Technology & Agriculture
Ajay, Sandeep & Jagdish nods together and affirms that agriculture can be really profitable if technology is used efficiently. "There is a fear that agriculture is risky because you depend on the weather, and we have taken 90% of that risk. On top of that there is a fear of not getting good rates- so we eliminated the middleman dealing with supply directly".
Adding to the advantages of Hydrophonic Technique
Since there is no soil involved in the process, there is no need of pesticides. To save on space these young agri entrepreneurs have set up his system in a vertical farming model with racks that have seven levels.
Incredible right. We do need these cutting edge technology so as to improve our productivity and save on energy.
Get in touch with Letcetra Agritech here or write to them to [email protected] .
