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Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
Is the next disruptive idea in fintech or AI? Or semi-conductor design or quantum computing? Or mobility? Or another internet? Or, perhaps, social business? In this book, the author lays out the principles, focus areas and method that not only can empower farmers but also could lead to tectonic shifts in patterns of business ownership.
'The farmer entrepreneur' is the audacious vision for an enlightened, equitable and just global order that only the farmer can bring to life. It spurs the largest, yet weakest, section of the population to create a robust, resilient and sustainable framework that is the foundation to organize into one whole. That organization into one ensures that the farmer’s life is eminently bearable and flourishing, financial security being the last of her worries. The progressive hierarchy consummates with the entire economy being at the clutches of the farmer entrepreneur.
Considering the enormity of climate change and socio-economic inequality (among many other global challenges), farmers have a moral imperative to wrest control from career politicians and covetous businessmen to create that new future.
Santhosh Lakshmanan
Santhosh Lakshmanan comes from a tiny agricultural village in Nilgiri district of Tamilnadu in India. An Engineer who worked in the software industry for about 10 years, he had always been aware of the problems of farmers.
In 2014, at the age of 33, he started to work on his theory of change. Two years into agriculture and entrepreneurship, he not only was convinced that solutions to farm distress can only be solved by farmers themselves, but he also came to firmly believe that farmers were the only section of people who could, by taking control of their businesses, determine a just and new world order through their progressive actions.
It struck him that the farmer can combine entrepreneurship in hitherto unimagined ways on a broad scale. It is these ways he created models for and tested within his home district. He tested the end-to-end agriculture and business chain processes; he reared cattle, took up farm production, marketed and sold farm produce to retail and business customers and delivered goods across 40 villages; he set up retail and food businesses, and operated a rudimentary multi-vendor online marketplace platform and an online social network.
All these proved to him that these, and many other, businesses can be owned and leveraged by farmers to empower themselves. It is the underlying principles, pillars of action and the generic method behind these activities that he has condensed into his book ‘The Farmer Entrepreneur’.
