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Episode 107 · Deep tech · 44 min

Plenty is not productivity

India farms about 150 million hectares; the Netherlands farms one, and in 2016-17 the Dutch exported $1.4 billion of tomatoes against India's $435 million of all fruit and vegetables combined. Fasal's argument is that the gap is science, not land: Indian agronomy travels down the generations as wisdom, so a farmer acts on his impression of what the crop needs. Sensors and crop models replace the impression with ten litres, tomorrow at four. 75,000 acres in, and roughly 80 billion litres of water saved.

Supply chain & agri AI & machine learning Deep tech & hardware

Shailendra Tiwari

Co-founder, Fasal · with Vishal Krishna

44:15

Said in this episode

▶ 2:28

$1.4bn vs $435m

Dutch tomato exports vs all Indian fruit & veg

The 2016-17 data point that started the company: the Netherlands exported $1.4 billion of tomatoes alone; India's combined fruit and vegetable exports came to $435 million.

▶ 2:45

150M vs 1M ha

Arable land, India vs the Netherlands

India is one of the largest owners of arable land on earth with roughly 150 million hectares; the Netherlands works with about one million.

▶ 4:59

80 billion L

Water saved across Fasal farms

Every farm Fasal has worked on has cut water use 40-50%, which the company totals to roughly 80 billion litres, alongside 150,000 kg of pesticide avoided.

▶ 23:54

75,000 acres

Farmland on the platform

The farmers on Fasal collectively own about 75,000 acres, which Tiwari values at roughly $1 billion of grape, pomegranate, apple and banana produce.

▶ 27:12

30–40%

Indian horticulture lost in the chain

Perishable produce lost between harvest and plate. Tiwari calls the number a sin, given how much money and effort went into growing it.

▶ 42:37

16 → 50 t/acre

Tomato yield, national average vs Fasal

The Indian average is about 16 metric tonnes an acre; Fasal farmers grow 50, with 40, 50 and 60 reported often enough that Tiwari insists they are not edge cases.

The brief

The argument in sixty seconds

Tiwari's claim is that India's farm problem is not land, labour or climate but the absence of science at the level of the individual plant. India holds about 150 million hectares of arable land and every climatic zone going; the Netherlands holds one million hectares, and in 2016-17 it exported $1.4 billion of tomatoes while all of India's fruit and vegetable exports came to $435 million. His diagnosis is that Indian agronomy is handed down as wisdom rather than taught as science, so the farmer irrigates on an impression (water every day, a hundred litres) when the crop wanted ten litres tomorrow at four. Fasal wraps IoT, crop science, satellite data and machine learning around that gap and pushes the answer back in Kannada, Marathi, Hindi or English, by app, SMS or IVR call. Across 75,000 acres he claims 40-50% less water, roughly 80 billion litres, plus 150,000 kg less pesticide and at least 25% more produce grown for less money. Growing better turned out to be insufficient: 30-40% of India's horticulture is lost between farm and plate, and farmers producing premium grade were still selling at the same mandi price, which pushed Fasal down the chain into harvesting, grading, packaging and direct delivery. The larger bet, made here to a new investor, is arithmetical. Indian horticulture running at Fasal's yields, 50 tonnes of tomato an acre against a national average of 16, would mean nobody on earth has to farm another plot of land.

Worth your time if you are

Agritech founders shipping hardware into 52°C fields

Deep-tech investors sizing India's farm-data opportunity

Operators building a physical value chain from scratch

Founders who have delegated culture to somebody else

Anyone still treating Indian farmers as a charity case

Episode map

Where the conversation travels

Every block is a chapter, coloured by what it's about. Click any of it to jump straight to that minute on YouTube.

Supply chain & agriAI & machine learningDeep tech & hardwareFounder journeyImpact & outcomesConsumer India

01Cold open: a language for talking to crops 0:00 Guest host Anil Achyuta of TDK Ventures frames the episode around a fresh investment in a Bengaluru precision-farming company, and Tiwari answers the elevator-pitch question with a George R. R. Martin joke: Fasal invented a language that lets farmers speak to their crops. 02The Netherlands number 1:40 India has 150 million hectares, every climatic zone and 1.4 billion people, yet in 2016-17 the Netherlands exported $1.4 billion of tomatoes off one million hectares against India's $435 million of all fruits and vegetables, because agricultural knowledge here moves as inherited wisdom, not science. 03Twelve months of savings, 75,000 acres later 4:06 The founders registered the company in 2018 with a self-imposed twelve-month deadline before returning to jobs; the resulting stack of crop science, machine learning and IoT now covers 75,000 acres, having saved 40-50% of water on every farm (some 80 billion litres) and 150,000 kg of pesticide while growing at least 25% more. 04Obsession, not courage 5:33 Asked what gave him conviction, Tiwari parks courage aside. He was in his late twenties with savings to lose and a history of failing, and he argues that ideas are only 10% of anything, with disciplined execution carrying the rest. 05One farm, one family, one taluka 8:16 The vision that still drives him compounds: transform one farm and you transform a family, ten villages and you transform a taluka. The first cohort of five farmers bore it out, and one of them called it a kranti after six months. 06Two regrets: COVID's distance, outsourced culture 10:48 The seed round closed into the pandemic and Tiwari spent the first year of commercialisation in a Bangalore office instead of beside the farmer using the product; worse, after the pre-Series A he handed the building of one team and its culture to someone else, and the halves of the company came out visibly different. 07Why do you work? The third-degree question 15:50 He asks every candidate why they work and distrusts fancy answers, since wanting your family to be well off is a perfectly good motive, then illustrates the red flag with an applicant who claimed farming roots and had no answer at all about which crops or what challenges. 08Land, crop, farmer: ten litres at four 18:52 Fasal's proposition addresses arable land, the plant's genetic potential and an increasingly aspirational farmer, using sensors, satellite and models to replace an impression of what the crop needs with an instruction in the local language: water tomorrow at four, ten litres, and treat this disease now at a tenth of the later cost. 09A supply-consistency problem, not a supply problem 24:10 Knowing which farmer is growing which crop at which stage lets Fasal promise e-commerce, modern trade and export buyers a specific quality of banana a month in advance, delivered straight into their distribution centre with four handling nodes and their food miles cut out. 10The 40% that rots 27:10 India loses 30-40% of its perishable horticulture in the supply chain, which he calls a sin in a world where tens of millions go hungry. When better-grown produce also proved to last five days instead of three yet still fetched the same mandi price, the marketplace idea followed. 11Good clothes, good food, and every node pushing back 29:55 A study of countries moving up the income curve told them consumption shifts to better clothes and better food, so Fasal took over harvesting, sorting, grading, packaging and logistics, down to how many sheets of paper go in a box, against a traditional value chain that resists at every node. 12Buffalo-proof hardware is the hard moat 34:38 The plant breathes continuously so the data has to be continuous, which means devices that survive 52°C in Barmer, 200 mm of rain and a loose buffalo at a price the farmer accepts. The soft moat was assembling a team willing to try; the hard one was five years of crop-science experiments across 200 farms. 13The morning fifty devices died 37:20 Tiwari rejects the charity-case framing of Indian farmers, since a four-acre holding is a small business you can reason with on P&L, and recounts waking at 7 a.m. to find all fifty devices in the first cohort dead after farmers had started depending on them. 14Onions, export bans and beating the Netherlands 39:45 Invoking the 2016 collapse in Indian data prices as the template for a springboard technology, he wants Fasal on half of Indian horticulture, enough to flatten onion price spikes and let policymakers see production early, and closes with the scoreboard: 16 tonnes of tomato an acre nationally, 50 on Fasal farms.

Timeline

The arc, briefly

One yield gap, from a Dutch export figure to 75,000 acres of Indian farmland.

2016An Indian telecom company collapses the price of data. Tiwari treats it as the template for a springboard technology: make one input cheap enough and a whole tier of businesses becomes possible on top of it.

2016-17The number that started the company. The Netherlands exported $1.4 billion of tomatoes off about one million hectares, while all of India's fruit and vegetable exports came to $435 million off roughly 150 million hectares.

2018Fasal is registered. Founders in the second half of their twenties give themselves twelve months of savings, with a job to go back to if nothing works. He told his father he had X months of savings and might need to ask for money; his father told him to go and live his life.

2018+Five years, 200 farms. The moat turns out to be crop science and hardware rather than software: the same experiment repeated from farm A to farm B, on devices that have to survive 52°C in Barmer, 200 mm of rain and a loose buffalo. One morning he woke at seven to find all fifty devices in the first cohort dead, two months after farmers had started depending on them.

2020The seed round closes into covid. The money arrives at a good moment and the first year of commercialisation is spent in a Bangalore office rather than beside the farmer using the product, which he names as the thing he would go back and change.

Today75,000 acres, and a number to beat. Water down 40 to 50% on every farm, about 80 billion litres of it, 150,000 kg less pesticide and at least 25% more produce for less money. Tomato runs at 50 tonnes an acre on Fasal farms against a national average of 16, and he wants half of Indian horticulture on it, enough to flatten an onion spike before policymakers have to ban exports.

Takeaways

Ideas to carry out of this hour

India's yield gap is a science gap, not a land gap

Every input India is supposed to lack, it has: 150 million hectares of arable land, every climatic zone, every soil type, 1.4 billion people, millions of them in agriculture. What it lacks, Tiwari argues, is science. Agricultural knowledge is transmitted from one generation to the next as wisdom, so nobody in the chain knows why a plant does what it does. The 2016-17 comparison that started the company is the proof he keeps returning to: the Netherlands exported $1.4 billion of tomatoes off one million hectares while all of India's fruit and vegetable exports totalled $435 million. Either India is very bad at this or the Dutch are very good, and the difference is the science in between.

▶ 1:41 ▶ 2:12 ▶ 2:28

The product is a translation layer, not a dashboard

A farmer working from inherited practice has an impression of what the crop needs, water every day and roughly a hundred litres, rather than what it actually needs. Fasal's IoT, satellite, crop-science and machine-learning stack exists to collapse that into an instruction: your crop needs water tomorrow by four, and only ten litres; conditions favour this disease, treat it tomorrow at a tenth of the cost of treating it later. The answer arrives in Kannada, Marathi, Hindi or English, over app, SMS or an IVR call, whatever the farmer already uses. The crop, in his framing, finally gets to say it is thirsty or sick.

▶ 22:14 ▶ 22:30 ▶ 23:20

India's produce problem is consistency, not quantity

Tiwari's sharpest commercial claim is that the country does not have a demand and supply problem, it has a supply-consistency problem: you may or may not get the specific quality of banana you want on any given day. Because Fasal knows which of its farmers is growing which crop at which stage, it can forecast output and quality earlier than the farmer can, and commit a month in advance to an e-commerce, modern-trade or export buyer. Delivering straight into the buyer's distribution centre also removes at least four handling nodes and the freshness lost at each of them.

▶ 25:00 ▶ 25:34 ▶ 26:23

Growing better is worthless if the market pays the same

The first cohort's season produced more yield, better quality and, to their surprise, longer shelf life, produce that survived five days instead of three. Yet those farmers were still selling premium grade in the same market at the old price, which made no sense when 30-40% of India's perishable horticulture is lost in the chain anyway and, as Tiwari puts it, tens of millions of people are going hungry. That mismatch, not a strategy deck, is what pushed Fasal from a sensor business into a marketplace and then into the value chain itself: harvesting, sorting, grading, packaging, logistics.

▶ 27:12 ▶ 28:31 ▶ 29:11

A device that survives a buffalo is the real moat

Because a plant is continuously breathing and developing, the data has to be continuous, which means hardware left alone on farms where the temperature can hit 52°C in Barmer, where 200 mm of rain can fall, where a buffalo may wander through, and where the farmer may not visit for stretches. Building IoT is one thing; building it for that adversity, at a price a farmer judges worth paying, is another. The softer half of the moat is having assembled a team that believed a farm could be diagnosed without standing on it; the hard half is that they then spent five years proving it across 200 farms.

▶ 34:56 ▶ 35:16 ▶ 36:52

Culture is the one thing a founder cannot delegate

After the pre-Series A, Tiwari outsourced the building of one specific team and its culture to somebody else, assuming that 120 already-motivated people would set the tone for the next thirty hires. It did not happen: parts of the team began to look visibly different from the rest, and he has since reverted to interviewing every single person from the junior-most to the senior-most role, running a values conversation and restating them over email. His reasoning is that a startup aiming to change a country needs mission-oriented people, not employees who arrive at nine and leave at six believing the job is done.

▶ 14:04 ▶ 14:55 ▶ 15:23

Treat the farmer as a small business, not a charity case

Tiwari says Indian farmers have long been portrayed as a charity case, and that this is the wrong lens: a four- or five-acre holding is a small business, and a business can be reasoned with on cost, revenue, P&L and why something might fail. The test came early, when he woke at seven to find all fifty devices in the first cohort dead, after two months in which those farmers had built real dependence on them. Nobody slept for days, they fixed it, and the operating rule stuck: assume the farmer is a rational actor, apologise where you must, and take a stand where you should.

▶ 37:27 ▶ 37:42 ▶ 38:06

Obsession, not courage, is what survives a decade

Asked what separates founders who commit from those with too many ideas, Tiwari parks courage aside. In the back half of your twenties with twelve months of savings there is genuinely nothing to lose, and he had already failed enough times not to fear it. What sustains a ten- or twenty-year commitment is obsession with a problem: transform one farm and you transform a family, ten farms a village, hundreds of talukas a country. Ideas, he says, are about 10% of anything; disciplined execution is what turns an average idea into a company and a great one into a regret.

▶ 6:20 ▶ 8:03 ▶ 8:34

The numbers, drawn

What the episode measures

Every figure below was said on air, with timestamps included and caveats kept.

The number that started the company

$ million exported, 2016-17

As stated in conversation: Dutch tomato exports of $1.4 billion off ~1 million hectares against India's $435 million of combined fruit and vegetable exports off ~150 million hectares.▶ 2:28

Tomato yield per acre

metric tonnes per acre

Figures as given on air; Tiwari cites ~16 tonnes for the average Indian farmer and 40, 50 or 60 on Fasal farms, which he says recur season after season rather than being edge cases.▶ 42:37

An impression, and an instruction

the same irrigation decision, before and after the sensors

The gap Tiwari says the whole company exists to close. He is careful that the point is not the dashboard: the answer has to arrive in the channel and the language the farmer already uses.▶ 22:14

Why a sensor company ended up packing boxes

what the first good season ran into

Not a strategy deck. The first cohort grew better fruit that also kept longer, and the mandi paid them exactly what it had paid before, which is how a hardware company came to argue about how many sheets of paper go in a box.▶ 27:12

Worth keeping

Lines that stay

We are all a bunch of George R. R. Martins — we have created our own language, and it allows farmers to speak to their crops.

▶ 0:50

I'm not a very big fan of ideas — ideas are like 10% of something. I'm a very big fan of disciplined execution.

▶ 8:03

This country doesn't have a demand and supply problem. This country has a supply consistency problem.

▶ 25:00

In a world where tens of millions of people are going hungry, it is a sin to let this happen.

▶ 27:43

This country saw farmers as a charity case, and that was terrible. We look at them as small businesses — and you can reason with a business.

▶ 37:42

Clips that travel

Short on time? Start here

Anyone who thinks India's farm problem is land or labour

The Netherlands number

The export comparison that founded the company, and the receipts eight years on: 75,000 acres, 80 billion litres of water, 25% more produce.

1:40 → 5:33 · 4 min ▶ Watch clip

Founders scaling a mission-led team past 100 people

Two regrets, and the culture you can't outsource

A candid list: the COVID year spent away from the customer, the delegated culture that split the company in two, and the hiring question he now asks everyone.

10:48 → 18:52 · 8 min ▶ Watch clip

Product leaders building for low-literacy, high-stakes users

Ten litres, tomorrow at four

The clearest statement of what the technology actually does: impression versus need, an IVR call in Marathi, and forecasting quality a month ahead of the buyer.

21:25 → 27:10 · 6 min ▶ Watch clip

Operators building physical supply chains from scratch

The 40% that rots

Why a sensor company ended up owning harvesting and packaging: post-harvest loss, shelf life from three days to five, and premium grade fetching commodity prices.

27:10 → 32:02 · 5 min ▶ Watch clip

Deep-tech investors sizing an India-first hardware bet

Buffalo-proof hardware and the food-bowl arithmetic

The moat section (52°C, 200 mm of rain, five years across 200 farms) running into the closing claim that India could feed the world without another acre.

34:38 → 44:15 · 10 min ▶ Watch clip

Glossary

The jargon, unpacked

Precision farming

Managing a farm from continuous measurement rather than routine: deciding irrigation, nutrition and spraying per plot and per crop stage instead of by calendar or habit.

Horticulture

In Tiwari's words, an umbrella term for fruits, vegetables, plantation crops and spices. It is the perishable segment Fasal works in, and the one that loses 30-40% of output in the chain.

Genetic potential

The maximum quality and quantity a given plant variety is capable of producing; the gap between potential and actual yield is what Fasal claims to close.

APMC market

The regulated agricultural produce market yard where Indian farmers traditionally sell. It pays the same price whether the produce is premium grade or not.

Post-harvest loss

Produce that is grown but never eaten, lost to handling, transport, packaging and delay between the farm and the plate.

Food miles

The distance and number of handling nodes produce passes through before reaching the buyer; Fasal cuts at least four nodes by delivering from the farm into a buyer's distribution centre.

IVR call

An automated interactive voice-response phone call: one of the delivery channels, alongside app and SMS, that lets Fasal reach farmers who do not read a dashboard.

Connections

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EP 19 · Consumer

Full transcript

The whole conversation, searchable

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