Laymen Agro Ventures
Industry: Agriculture/Agribusiness
Headquarters: Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Website: www.vilfreshindia.com
Cohort: 2018
Partner Since: April 2019
Jobs Created: 196
Laymen Agro aims to bring village-fresh agro-products to urban citizens through an aggregation model that channels the lion’s share of the consumer’s price back to the rural economy. They turn rural youth into entrepreneurs (VillagePreneurs) to ensure better returns to the agro-outputs and supply agro-inputs at a wholesale price that doubles the net margin for the farmers.
The VillagePreneurs collect milk, fruits, and vegetables directly from farmers, take them to the nearby cities in less than 162 minutes and distribute them under Laymen Agro’s quality certification/brand. The farmers get up to 35% better returns on milk and 40% to 60% better returns on fruits and vegetables, which increases the farmers’ margins, resulting in a substantial jump in their disposable income.
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about the entrepreneur
When Selvakumar Varadharajan, founder and Chief Executive of Laymen Agro Ventures settled in Bangalore to start a family, he and his wife soon began to long for the farm-fresh produce and dairy of their childhood that was not available in urban India. This prompted them to move back to Coimbatore to start a venture that would provide urban citizens with access to fresh agro-products while improving the livelihoods of small-holder farmers and rural youths in the process.