Sunil Khairnar

I was delighted to meet Shri Vasudev Kathe ji in Nashik a few days ago. Nashik is truly fortunate to have many Krishi Rishis of his stature, who continue to guide farmers in the region and across India. Shri Kathe ji has made remarkable contributions, especially in the field of grape cultivation: Authored four books…

Scanit, founded by founded by Pete Manautou and Jaydeep Rane, exemplifies innovation in agricultural technology by addressing a critical gap in disease detection. As a global ag-tech startup, it has developed the multi-patented SporeCam, which provides early disease-detection-as-a-service by capturing the most elusive datapoint for crop disease forecasts: real-time, hyperlocal pathogen presence, completing the disease…

Kiran Antre, a Nashik-based entrepreneur and agricultural expert, stands as a shining example of a hashtag#ChildrenofFarmerEntrepreneur. With over a decade of experience, he has established a strong presence in the agrochemical industry, combining his agricultural roots with a passion for innovation. During my visit to his factory today, I was deeply impressed by his remarkable…

I was happy to meet Tukaram Sonawane along with Deepak Chavan. Tukaram is the co-founder of Krishigati and he exemplifies resilience and dedication in the journey from farmer’s son to agricultural innovator. Overcoming early hardship—losing his father young and supporting his visually impaired mother—Tukaram worked his way through school and engineering college, driven by a…

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend time with Prasad and Kiran Ji, along with other individuals, at GK91 Bioeconomy and VARHAD Capital in Pune. Prasad has seen the Bioceconomy field for two decades and shared many valuable insights regarding this space during the discussions. Prasad bhai has the distinction of having worked in the…

I spent some time recently in Pune with Sagar Padgilwar ji of Padgilwar Corporation whose family has been in the Agri equipment space for more than 70 years now for the last three generations. They have a fantastic business model call Kisan Machine Bank which can be very useful for farmer producer organisations in rural…

Visited Mahesh Londhe founder Agrozee recently who works out of a small village near Urali Kanchan. He is doing some great work in millets through Millet Adda and has more than 150 skus made from millets like ragi, kodo, bhagar, jowar, bajra etc. His unit is around 40 km away from Pune city. I enjoyed…

Great meeting and lunch with Parmeshwar and Nitin the promoters and founders of TECHENCE which is Poultry industry focused SAS Co. They are strong domain guys who built a software Company out of village near Rajgurunagar Pune. This is a bootstrapped and profitable company.The interesting bit is that the main promoter has only HSC level…

Met the absolutely brilliant team of 8 cofounders of a bootstrapped and profitable startup recently.All 8 are farmers kids and have built the venture by solving problems faced by their own family members. Shrilesh Mande is the brilliant leader of this team and I regard him as the Elon Musk of rural India!! Leading a…