Ajay Lahane, Co-Founder of EcoOpus
After crops, such as wheat and maize, are harvested, the remining crop residue, or biomass, often times goes underutilized. In India, it’s sometimes burned on the fields at the detriment of the local community and the environment. Business partners, Ajay Lahane, Uday Nankar, and Anshuman Gupta, recognized the opportunity to formalize the biomass supply chain in India so the crop residue could be used to generate energy, and, in turn, income for farmers.
They started their business, EcoOpus, to provide services to farmers to collect and process agricultural biomass free of charge. Once collected, the biomass is sold to bulk buyers, such as commercial dairies for fodder, or refineries for bio-ethanol production. By creating linkages between the farmers and the biomass market, EcoOpus helps farmers generate income from what would otherwise go to waste.
EcoOpus also creates job opportunities for rural youth by engaging them as Village Level Entrepreneurs to provide services to the farmers. Rural families without land are also hired to process and package the biomass.
The EcoOpus team is participating in Upaya’s virtual 2020 Accelerator Program aimed at equipping early-stage entrepreneurs with tools to grow their companies and have a meaningful impact through job creation. We’re pleased to introduce one of the EcoOpus Co-founders in our Q&A with Ajay Lahane.
Q: What are the key problems your company aims to address?
We’re addressing the unassured and inefficient biomass (crop residue) supply chain which is highly unorganized and non-professional. On one side, the supply chain fails to provide assurance on quality, quantity, and price to biomass-based projects. On the other side, it fails to percolate any tangible benefits to the farmers who are the real owners of biomass. So we aim to reconstruct the agri supply chain, both grains and biomass, for assured and efficient aggregation of surplus crop residue.
Q: How did you become so passionate about this problem?
I had developed interest in biomass during our stay in a tribal village as a part of field work segment of my academic curriculum. More research into the subject revealed that, through technological and policy advancement, biomass has potential to generate and boost the green and rural economies. It has potential to enlarge the employment window in rural areas, and, substituting the fossil fuel, it also helps reduce CO2 emission. The features of biomass has fascinated me a lot.
While working as a professional in the sector, I realized that the real problem is of biomass is supply chain. Failures in the biomass supply chain have actually made me more passionate to work towards the solution.
Q: What inspired you or gave you the idea to start your company?
The fact that, on one side, crop residue is being burnt on fields which pollutes the environment, while, on other side, most of the power plants in the country have become defunct and non-operational due to absence of a robust and efficient biomass supply chain.
The Government of India is setting up Bio-ethanol refineries to produce ethanol using crop residue as feedstock. But the sustainability of these refineries lies in the correction of present biomass supply chain issues.
Being practitioners in this field for last nine years, we thought it is time to put our insights and ground-level experience into practice and become a leading biomass aggregator for upcoming bio-ethanol refineries.
Q: What has been your greatest accomplishment to date?
We were selected in the HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd) startup program and received seed funding which has helped us to establish our proof of concept.
Q: What has been your biggest challenge so far?
As there are many stories of failure in the biomass sector, it has been Investment Negative. Thus, a big challenge is to evince an interest from investors in this sector.
Q: What is your vision for your company?
To reconstruct the agriculture supply chain where farmers treat biomass at par with grains and refrain from burning crop residue in fields. To become leading biomass aggregator for upcoming Bio-ethanol refineries. In nut shell, to perform and act to maintain the ecological balance.
What is your vision for India or the world at large?
We want to strengthen our national wealth by generating a circular economy through biomass utilization. We hope to reduce the world’s dependency on fossil fuels cascading to reduction in CO2 emission
Q: What would be your advice (top 3) to other entrepreneurs entering the space?
Understand the space thoroughly and in a holistic manner.
Find out the critical gaps (there are many) and explore the root causes.
Share the risks and the rewards among the stakeholders of any value/supply chain to ensure its sustainability.
Observation skills, analytical mind, patience, and perseverance are the MUSTS to carry out the above. Sometimes the solution to most complex problem lies in simple tinkering.
The Tribal Hermit is a social impact venture that works closely with 130+ Dhokra craft artisans from Kondagaon, Bastar, and Raigarh districts of Chhattisgarh to design, create, and sell their products.