Last April, when the coronavirus-induced lockdown was in force nationwide, Ruchit Garg, the founder and CEO of agri-tech startup, Harvesting, set up a Twitter account called Harvesting Farmer Network (HFN) to help distressed farmers across the country sell their crops. Within days of its launch, the handle @harvestingfn logged close to 15,000 followers. After farmers sought help, Ruchit would share details like their name, type and quantity of produce and location/phone number for buyers, who would then call them directly to purchase their harvest.
In the 10 months since, Ruchit claims that farmers have listed agri-produce worth over $23 million, attracting 2.3 million farmers—which includes individual farmers and Farmer Producer Organisations or FPOs—from 22 states on their Twitter platform. In this system, farmers would send WhatsApp messages to the HFN team with key details and images of the produce, and their technology would broadcast the supply information to buyers on…