Challenge
In India, 41 million small-plot farmers rely on flood irrigation, a method that stunts crops and washes away valuable soil nutrients. Drip irrigation increases the efficiency of water and fertilizer by 20% to 50% and increases yields by 30% to 100%. Drip irrigation also preserves nutrients in the soil and increases land longevity. Due to weak distribution chains and product complexity, drip technology has proliferated to only 5% of these farmers.
Solution
MyRain is a wholesaler of drip irrigation products. MyRain’s Rainmaker (patent-pending) is a point-of-sale and design application that makes it easy for retailers to customize drip irrigation systems for small-plot farmers based on entering a few parameters. This intuitive app removes the barrier of retailer engineering expertise and increases the ease and opportunity to advise, sell, and order drip irrigation components.
Milestones and Achievements
In year one, MyRain has focused on increasing access and usage of micro irrigation in India. To date, the innovator has seen over 235 million liters of water savings and reached 660 end users. Farmers have used MyRain-supplied irrigation products on 162 hectares of fields. Additionally, sales have been good. MyRain sold more than $80,000 worth of irrigation and hardware products at a gross profit margin of more than 21%.
Goals
- Support to better understand the agricultural retailer market in the Indian states of Tamil, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana.
- Assist in making connections with local Indian banks to link MyRain’s retailer network to working capital and financing.
- Introductions to potential investors.
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