Purushottam Sidhpara is one of the countless cultivators in our nation to practice organic farming or farming without the usage of pesticides and chemicals. Likewise, the value and the organic component of his produce, what sets this 50-year-old’s farming different is his marketing strategy.
Based in Jamka village in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region, he took over the farms from his father at the young age of 18 and raised the business exponentially over the years. From grains, pulses, spices, vegetables to fruits, Sidhpara retails nearly everything in India and 10 other countries.
While it comes to his marketing approach, generally people do not trust his assertions of never wasting a penny on online marketing and promotion. What he utilizes is his warm and kind hospitality.
“Atithi Devo Bhava is a sentiment that I take seriously. I invite my potential dealers or customers to my farm, where they can stay with me for a couple of days. I show them my farming process in detail, provide meals made from my farm crops and answer all their queries without charging a single penny. If they like the food they eat, we exchange numbers to place orders. I also give them regular updates on Whatsapp about harvesting the crop. This helps gain their trust and loyalty,” Sidhpara says.
Sidhpara’s unique selling idea
Till 1999, famine was a major challenge and the reason behind crop losses in the Jamka village of Junagadh. That year, the villagers came in unity and generated funds to develop small dams and reservoirs to store the rainwater.
“We raised Rs 45,00,000 and built 55 small dams and five ponds for a population of 3,000 villagers. When it rained, the new reservoirs saved lakhs of litres of water and the groundwater tables rose from 500 feet to 50 feet. Since then, insufficient rainfall has never been a problem. The Gujarat government adopted our model to implement it in other water-scarce regions. Experts, students, water activists and media members flocked our village for almost an entire year to study the results,” recalls Sidhpara.
The residents, including Sidhpara, greeted the strangers as their own family members and invited them to their homes and farms.
“After eating my food, people wanted to purchase the crops, vegetables and spices directly from us. For the first time, we were dealing with the customers directly, as until then our business model was B2B. The visitors went back and told their friends and family about my farm, and my business grew through word of mouth. This was my biggest learning, so I continued hosting visitors,” he says.
Sidhpara’s current annual turnover stands at Rs 2 crore and he has clients across various countries, including the USA, UK, Norway, Germany, Dubai, and Ethiopia.
Cost-effective farming
As an 18-year-old he had numerous thoughts and ideas and nearly all of them stemmed from his education. He learnt about an organic method of farming.
Before making the change, his earnings were insignificant and the revenues had to be reinvested in buying chemicals and pesticides for the subsequent crop cycle. The family’s income was as a farm labourer’s, he claims.
“My input costs reduced by almost 40% once I switched to organic fertiliser. Meanwhile, the mulching system cut down my water usage by almost 20%. The micro-irrigation system also helps in saving water,” he adds.
These simple measures and techniques he applied in his farming increased Sidhpara’s revenue by almost five times and the gains were reinvested in making value-added products like pickle, chutney, chyawanprash, ghee (from milk’s cow), groundnut and sesame oil, wheat flour, dals, etc. This, he claims, raised his profits by 15%.
Bhavani Modi, who is a regular customer of value-added products from Sidhpara company for the last 12 years says, “Purushottam bhai’s products are trustworthy in terms of quality and quantity. They are always fresh, healthy and taste different from the ones we get in the market.”
Contrasting the virtual portals where clients can place orders immediately with no waiting period, Sidhpara’s harvest and value-added products need to be ordered beforehand, according to each crop’s harvesting cycle.
