Khetigaadi.com - World's First One-Stop Solution for Agricultural Machinery

India is one of the top countries, precisely second, worldwide in farm outputs. Agriculture sector employs 50% of the Indian work force and contributes 17-18% to the country's GDP. A large section of our population depends on agriculture, especially our farmers. And the state of farmers in our country is worrisome. Floods, droughts, low income and unavailability of financial sources leads them in a debt trap and hence farmers, their families and the agriculture industry as a whole suffers. There are Government policies and non-government organizations helping farmers in many ways. But still, there is lot more that is needed to be done, and a startup that realized these issues and has come forward to further develop the agricultural sector through mechanization is Khetigaadi.com

Khetigaadi.com is the world's first destination for tractors and farm mechanization. The platform is a marketplace for buying, selling and renting of agricultural equipment and also offers knowledge based advises  to the farmers, and insurance and loan assistance on agricultural equipment. Pravin Shinde, the founder of Khetigaadi, put his heart and soul into this startup and his journey to success is commendable. StartupTalky interviewed Pravin Shinde to find out more about the venture.

Khetigaadi - Company Highlights

About Khetigaadi and How it Works
Khetigaadi - Market and Industry Details
Founders of Khetigaadi
How was Khetigaadi Started
Khetigaadi - Startup Launch
Khetigaadi - Name and Logo
Khetigaadi - Revenue Model
Khetigaadi - User Acquisition
Khetigaadi - Startup Challenges
Khetigaadi - Competitors
Khetigaadi - Advisors and Mentors
Khetigaadi - Future Plans
Khetigaadi - FAQs

About Khetigaadi and How it Works

Khetigaadi is world’s first destination where one can buy, sell, rent, compare and review tractors and farm mechanization, all with a simple click. It has been established to encourage farm mechanization and usage of technology and hi-tech products in agriculture to optimize yield in less man-hours. It is not just an online market place to source agricultural implements, but is also a knowledge based advisory platform for the farming community and provides insurance and loan assistance on various agricultural equipment.

Built on high-tech angular technology, Khetigaadi portal is as safe as an online banking portal. To make the platform user friendly for the farmers, Khetigaadi has made it available as an App in 10 languages and the company's website can be viewed in 3 different languages, English, Hindi and Marathi. The concept is techno-savvy and compatible with IOS as well as Android.

Khetigaadi - Market and industry details

According to a recent NABARD report, the size of the farm equipment market is expected to reach 9 lakh crore by 2022.

As said by Pravin,  "The current farm mechanism industry is almost 80 thousand crore where new tractor industry takes up 40 thousand crore, the old tractor industry is at 20 thousand crore, rental tractor industry is gauged approx.at 15k crore and finally the implement industry is at around. 5 thousand crore"

Founders of Khetigaadi

Mr. Pravin Shinde and Vishnu Dhas are the Co-founders of Khetigaadi.com.

Pravin Shinde himself is a farmer's son and he witnessed the hardships faced by agricultural community closely. His aim was to address one of this major challenges of our country. Pravin is a graduate in Economics and a diploma holder in Agricultural Technology. He began his professional career by joining his family owned business dealing in fertilizers, pesticides and chemicals. Pravin's family was the first one to know about his plans and the idea behind conceiving Khetigaadi. After gaining a bit of market experience, he joined SAR Agrochemicals & Fertilizers Pvt. Ltd., which was founded by his elder brother, Prashant Shinde.

Today SAR Agro-chemicals & Fertilizers Pvt. Ltd. is amongst the finest manufacturers, suppliers, traders, distributors and importers of range of Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers. Apart from managing Khetigaadi, Pravin is also Founding Director of SAR Agro-chemicals & Fertilizers Pvt. Ltd.

In Oct. 2017 Pravin was in the process of taking SAR Agro-chemicals & Fertilizers beyond local borders. He met Mr. Vishnu Dhas at an event. They say when you have similar interests, working together becomes easy. Vishnu’s views about the need to further mechanize farming techniques and raising the farmers, our 'annadatas' on a respectable strata of the society, were similar to Pravin's ideas and vision. In no time their wavelengths matched and Pravin and Vishnu came together to  do a successful event together in February 2018. After that there has been no looking back. Pravin and Vishnu officially got together in June 2018 and Mr. Vishnu Dhas became an integral part of Khetigaadi as Co-founder and Executive Director.

How was Khetigaadi Started

Pravin being from a farmer family was well aware of the issues the farmer faced, and was willing to do something for the improvement of the status of the farmers. Khetigaadi  was started with a  vision to bring about and facilitate a positive change in the way farming is undertaken in India and to bring India at par with the developed nations in terms of farm mechanization.

"Farmers are the most important ones – our ‘Annadata’. My quest is to empower them, improve their current situation and bring them into the mainstream. They deserve limelight and I want them to realize how important their part is in our lives. My conscious is continuously hunting for novel ideas to better their situation." says Pravin  explaining the motto behind starting Khetigaadi.

Farmers, their challenges, the villages, techno-innovation in bringing about a positive change in the agricultural sector – all of this is very close to his heart. Through Khetigaadi he seeks to reach out to a maximum number of farmers in each and every nook and corner of India with the help of technology.

I am constantly thinking about how else can I offer the farmers with solutions that will take away manual labour from their routine and at the same time fetch them good yield.

Khetigaadi - Startup Launch

When Khetigaadi started off, the team did not even have all the information required to educate and convince the farmers, on one platform. It wasn’t available online nor were there any offline sources where they could collate it from. They reached out to various agriculture-based research centers and sometimes even purchased the much-need information and reports. This exercise took almost a year where they compiled all the data and studies that will help enlighten the farmers and convince them about the need for mechanization.

Mr. Pravin Shinde’s brother also came in and helped a lot with the business activities. They built the website in-house without any professional help. They eventually built the website to what it looks today, through trial and error and multiple hurdles. It is a success nonetheless!

Khetigaadi launched the portal in May 2016 from its Pune office. They faced some backlash when they got started. But Khetigaadi team reached out to the farmers undeterred. Exhibitions, One-ones, sessions and social media handles have helped them immensely in their awareness campaign.

Moving further, Khetigaadi commercially launched itself in 2018 for manufacturers and distributors of tractors and farm equipment. Renowned tractor manufacturer John Deere was the first customer on the platform.

Khetigaadi - Name and Logo

As the platform deals with vehicle (gaadi) and equipment used for agriculture (kheti), the company is rightly called 'Khetigaadi'

All of us dream of owning a vehicle (either a four wheeler or a two wheeler depending upon aspirations). Similarly, a farmer also aspires to own one albeit, his fancy is of owning a tractor that’ll help him take his farming skills on to the next level. It in fact for him is synonymous with his farm. A ‘gaadi’ used for ‘kheti’ and that’s where we leaped feeling thrilled for thinking of ‘khetigaadi’. That moment is still fresh like yesterday for me.

After the word ‘Khetigaadi’ was coined, and their team started building the platform, they realized that there is no other such platform in the world where information regarding farming automation and mechanization is collated and accessible. That’s when they came up with the tagline, ‘World’s first Agri-Mechanism for Indian Agriculture’.

Khetigaadi - Revenue Model

Khetigaadi serves as an Advertising and Marketing platform for all manufacturers, and dealers. The Khetigaadi revenue model works from-

1. Display Advertising
2. Enquiry Selling
3. Transaction base
4. Google Adsense
5. Product Promotion
6. Dealer Promotion
7. Reach Media

Khetigaadi - User Acquisitions

The team of Khetigaadi traveled village to village talking to farmers. Beginning with Nashik in Maharashtra and Jalandhar in Punjab, they met farmers one-by-one and explained the concept of Khetigaadi. After initial hiccups and disbelief, the farmers were convinced about Khetigaadi. These are the two cities where they got their first 15-20 clients.  

Pravin and Vishnu also spent almost one year in different initiatives like exhibitions, seminars, one-one discussions and workshops; to share information and enlighten farmers on how best can they optimize yield by mechanization. Social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook helped them take their awareness campaign to another level and helped them reach the grass root levels. With all of these, Khetigaadi managed to bring a sizeable farmer community on their platform.

I would like to give due credit to the new generation of farmers who are tech-savvy and keen on exploring innovation in farming.

Khetigaadi - Startup Challenges

Khetigaadi faced many challenges along its way. Starting off, was communication of a techno-driven initiative to uneducated farmer community. However, the team received positive response from the farmers.

The kind of enthusiasm shown and hunger to know more about mechanization is unparalleled. It was their curiosity that encouraged us to collate all possible data on one platform so that it becomes available for one and all - says Pravin about the response the Khetigaadi team received from the farmers

Khetigaadi - Competitors

Some of the competitors of Khetigaadi that have recently entered the Indian market are Tractor Gyan and Tractor Guru.  Khetigaadi however, precisely stands out from the competitors as they don’t just offer buying, selling and renting of farm equipment but also guide them to boost the farmers confidence in decision-making. There are similar platforms in terms of concept but the kind of technology, information and knowledge they offer; is second to none.

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Khetigaadi - Advisors and Mentors

Mr. Pravin Shinde’s family and friends have provided rock-solid support in every initiative that he has taken up. The team is also looking forward to on board experienced mentors for guiding them to take up the market, that is increasingly becoming competitive.

Khetigaadi - Future Plans

Khetigaadi recently achieved a significant milestone by registering 30 lakh farming communities on Khetigaadi platform. They also have on board 8 reputed tractor brands as clients.

Going forward their ambition is to provide one single platform for tractor and farm equipment brands where they can sell and service their products alongside assisting them in business development. Khetigaadi's mission is to connect 10 Million farmers to mechanized ways of farming.In the near future, Khetigaadi will also introduce AI based products.

Our farmers and the farming community are significant contributors towards the ecosystem and yet are the most neglected ones. Our core objectives are to educate them with right knowledge of farm mechanization, to encourage them to deploy it and optimize yield and of course to empower them with latest farming technology. We are already witnessing a positive difference with our initiatives amongst the farming community - Pravin Shinde, one of the founders of Khetigaadi

Khetigaadi - FAQs

What is Khetigaadi?

Khetigaadi is world’s first destination where one can buy, sell, rent, compare and review tractors and farm mechanization, Khetigaadi is an online platform where one can buy, sell and rent agricultural machinery. They also provide loan and insurance assistance on agricultural equipment.

When was Khetigaadi founded?

Khetigaadi was founded in 2016.

What sector does Khetigaadi operate in?

Khetigaadi is in Agricultural Products.