Leading industrialist Kamal Morarka, worked his entire life to build social capital. And his work became the most fruitful in the form of the Morarka Foundation. The Morarka Foundation has been the combined outcome of corporate philanthropy by Gannon Dunkerley & Company and Kamal’s philosophy of benevolence towards society. Right from the beginning, even as a voluntary organisation, it organised its act together to perform efficiently. Be it the recruitment of HR, creation of facilities or the application of technologies, it has always been self sufficient.
An Organic step forward
Morarka Organic Foods created in 1993 as a front-end business operation for providing marketing linkages to organic farmers, has the benefit of sharing this infrastructure with the Foundation. Morarka Organic was able to successfully implement organic agriculture in practically every agro-climate zone in India thanks to a solid technological understanding of organic cultivation. Currently, 1.44 lacs organic farmers in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, MP, Sikkim, and Himachal Pradesh are certified by Morarka Organic.
With more than 100 project locations that span nearly all of India’s agroclimatic zones, more than 100,000 farmers, and more than ten years of experience in this field, Morarka Organic has developed expertise in managing more than 300 distinct agricultural products at the farm level.
Currently, 130 to 150 crops-products are available in both farm-grade and processed forms, as well as retail packs, and are eligible to be included in their core range.
“All products are purchased from our certified farmers & delivery in a required basket to our consumers through our brand Down to Earth,” says Director, Rajendra A. Sharma (In addition to leading the company for Morarka Organic Foods in India and overseas, he has been facilitating the Morarka Foundation’s projects over the years.)
Main focus
The company’s primary focus is on value addition, storage, processing, and procurement.
Talking about this Rajendra says, “From the time we had started to procure directly from the organic farmers, we have been continuously building capacities for efficient management of these operations. Since we have been following the philosophy of entrepreneurial involvement, almost 90 percent of our present infrastructure in this domain is owned and managed by them.”
Processing & Value Addition operations have been broadly divided into two categories. For products such as cereals and pulses, the company has reached a sizeable scale of operations which has enabled it to establish tie-ups with outsourced service providers. Products like frozen foods, Ready to Eat, tin packs for dals & beans, etc. require very specialised equipment.
However the final quality control and packaging is done by us in our in-house facilities. Beginning with 5,000 sq. ft, the company is expanding.
Local business owners manage the facilities for the aggregation of materials purchased from very small farmers in each project region. The field crew provides them with instruction and support as they set up facilities such as storage, weighing scales, packing, batch number labelling, etc.
“Even the local transport from farm fields to central godown is handled by them. For the present scale of operations, we have storage facilities in Jaipur to maintain an overall stock of about 2000 m.t, once again outsourced to entrepreneurs,” says Rajendra.
Majority of the material is kept in cold storage. Some materials are kept in regular godowns as well. With the expansion of business operations, facilities are being created in many project areas also.
Doing a splendid job
The first problem that Morarka Organic addressed was the absence of chemical fumigants during storage. First, a straightforward method for producing airtight containers was created. For grain storage at the farm level, masonry-based wall units and metal bins holding 3 to 30 quintals of grains were both introduced. Over 10,000 farmers in the Shekhawati region alone have been using this method for more than ten years.
Morarka Organic has consequently developed CO2 fumigation technology for the large-scale preservation of food goods.
“Through in house efforts, Morarka Organic is the third company in the world to have mastered this technology,” adds Rajendra.
Similarly for every processing activity, for almost every crop, Morarka Organic has been necessitated to find suitable solutions by way of equipment and processes, either through modifications of existing and or developing something completely new. One such accomplishment is the dehydration of food products utilising solar vapour squeeze technology.
Innovations are solutions
An innovative system of process verification based on IT applications has been created at Morarka Organic. With current records of all the operations being carried out at the organic farm, this technology guarantees complete record maintenance on an online platform for all the producers. Farm level supervisors are responsible for maintaining both paper records, such as the Farm Diary, and electronic records. The Morarka Organic inspectors have a two-tier verification mechanism in place, and the Certification Agency also does third party verification. This gives the organic process certification the highest level of validity.
Additionally, in order to meet growing consumer demand and the goal of providing certified organic fruit at competitive costs, the company is now focusing on packaging.
“We hold ISO certification amd we are looking forward to expand our business and work pan India,” Sharma concludes.
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