Prakash G R Farmers’ Friend

• 40
• 0

Prakash G R the proprietor of SGM technologies was born to Sri Ramappa, a primary school teacher and Bhageerathamma , who was an agriculturist and a homemaker. They hailed from Nagasamudra in Bhadravathi district of Karnataka.  Unlike the saying that teachers' children tend to be teachers, He chose to become an entrepreneur. His family, wife Mrs Pushpalatha and his two children have been supportive of his decisions throughout his venture.

He is founder and manufacturer of Betel nut peeling machines to facilitate the problems faced by the local betel nut farmers of the local district. Though he studied computer engineering and had opened few educational institution to educate locals in computers but he always wanted a to find something new so he along with his friend in the year 2007 launched making the machines with belt system and later founded gear system which solved most of the problems existing in the older model in the year 2010-11. This chain system is very useful for farmers with 7 to 8 acres of betel nut farming and eliminates most of the problems existing in the older ones. These models are made according to the requirements . Machine varieties  may be of  2 chains, 4 chains, 6 chains, 8 chains or 10 chains according to the requirements of the farmers and  they help in peeling in large scale at faster rate and are far more efficient .

Mr Prakash started the business with zero investment and he credits his success to the grace of God as he had no knowledge of machines as he was not from mechanical background, but gradually evolved after taking inputs from the farmers according to their requirements and rectifying it every year for better performance after getting feedback from the farmers, who used them. His family also encouraged him in this venture. 

In the year 2009-2010 they sold 10 to 12 machines , studied the merits and the demerits and rectified the demerits in the next batch. Their sales are mostly in the districts of Davanagere, Chitradurga, Chikmagalur, and Shivamogga. So far they have sold more than 6000 to 7000 machines in the last 12 years. The sale of the machinery is seasonal as it is required on the peak seasons of betel nut harvesting .The machines cost range from 1lakh 37 thousand to few lakhs of rupees  but the horticulture department around 60,000 rupees subsidy for the farmers and they help the farmers in getting this subsidy. They do not compromise on quality of the product and give timely service to their machines at any given point of time on any given day and update the same in their future machines.

During the initial years they faced many problems, there were disturbances from rivals in marketing their machines, there were no subsidies given and so their sales were affected, and nowadays they are troubled by duplicate manufactures who try to imitate their machines.

When they started in 2009-10 they sold around 14 machines  which has now gone up to 150 machines. The venture which started as an assembly section in a small place has now grown to a big manufacturing unit. They have started Areca Mill from the last 2 years and have found 80 % success. The turnover of the business is 10 crore per annum. 

He plans to find many more agricultural machines which will help other farmers to grow and diverge his horizon. He hopes since the acquisition of CNC machines he will be able to diversify his R & D to different machines. He is not interested in providing the franchisee as he wants to genuinely help farmers and not make it all about profit making business which does not cater to the needs of the farmers, he is more interested in helping the farmers and solving their problems.

If you enjoyed reading this article and wish to support us by making a contribution or a small donation click on Razor Pay IIB Donation