Basaiah Hiremath’s Transition from Developing Software to Developing Superfood-Based Products

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A man ideally desires a high-paying job and hence migrates to work and support his family. There are people who still do not feel satisfied and the urge to serve the nation and its farmers burns within them. They give up their well-paying jobs and return to their hometown to serve the country in various ways, with some opting to do social work like joining an NGO or IAS. Some people start a business that sells products organically cultivated by farmers, like Basaiah Hiremath with Nandi Organic Farm House (NOFH) in the district of Koppal, Karnataka.

Basaiah Hiremath comes from a family of modest means, with his father involved in the agriculture business and his mother coming from a farmer’s family in the district of Koppal. He has four brothers and one sister. After he completed his education, he arrived at Bangalore and had initially applied for Bharati Electronics. He had to wait for at least a month with barely any cash, during which he joined a tin factory as a metal picker and dropper, which was similar to that of a coolie’s tasks.

His supervisor noticed his work ethic, and upon reviewing his record and education, immediately advised him to work somewhere else. He also gave Basaiah some addresses to offices more suitable to his education and experience. Soon, he became an employee in Infosys as a System and Network Engineer and worked till 2006 and then joined an American company in higher roles. He worked in places like Seattle, Sanjose, Freemont, Philadelphia in US for four to five other American companies like Webex, Cisco Systems and Saba transitioning from a manager to the director to even becoming the global head.

While in Seattle, Basaiah was going through statistics and reports on malnutrition when he spotted his district’s rating were high in cases. This saddened him and he came to a decision to help his people overcome malnutrition. While researching on superfoods that could help fight malnutrition, he discovered moringa, a plant suitable to be cultivated in the hot and dry Koppal. Moringa contains Vitamin A, B, C, E, K, Omega -3, 6, 9, with 92 nutrients including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fats, sterols, ketones, acids, alkaloids and flavonoids. It contains 46 antioxidants, 36 anti-inflammatory agents, 18 amino acids with 9 essential amino acids, Anti-diabetic properties, Anti-cancer, Anti-fungal, Anti-bacterial properties which could assist in the battle against malnutrition and other diseases with its immunity-boosting abilities.

Basaiah returned to his hometown and spent over 1.4 crores to purchase the plot and prepare it to be suitable for cultivating moringa. He initially started out as a farmer, but soon realized he had only become a fellow competitor rather than a helping hand to farmers. He devised a plan to share the benefits of moringa worldwide with added inspiration from APJ Abdul Kalam’s quote,”India shall shine as a country when science and technology is utilized for the upliftment of the agricultural industry.”

The plan assumed the form of Nandi Organic Farm House (NOFH), a manufacturer of plant-based certified organic products. Basaiah began to do a thorough research on the efficient ways to grow, cultivate, and manufacture moringa and its products. During its initial years, NOFH had its first successful moringa harvest and decided to distribute its powdered form among nearby villages. Within a month, most villagers that received the product praised it and stated that it cured their diseases. Now Organic moringa powder successful distributed for malnutrition eradication north Karnataka districts like Koppal, Bagalkot and Raichur. He was very thankful to all district commissioners and officials who are serious on eradicating the malnutrition in backward districts.

His vision of starting NOFH with Malnutrition eradication, certified organic farming and product development and Rural women employment.  Reason for starting the certified organic cultivation was to achieve zero side affects from current trend of adulterated foods and chemical toxic pesticides Agri practices.

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