The Bengaluru-based app is spreading its roots in Hyderabad, Surat, and soon, Chennai. Rent out nearby farmland to plant your own vegetables
There’s something to be said about growing your own food: damp soil beneath your feet, hands weeding, the smell of fresh grass, and that feeling of watching seeds turn into vegetables . You eat what you sow, and so you know exactly what is going into your body. Romantic as it is, for most of us city-dwellers living in matchbox apartments, it is also unviable.
Farmizen has a solution
The app allows you to rent out, on a subscription model, a section of a nearby farm that you can control via the app. You can choose whatever is to be grown there, and the farmhands, who work in collaboration with Farmizen, will do the required work for you. On weekends that you are free, you can drive down to oversee your farm, or work on it yourself.
“The idea was to bring people closer to the food they ate,” says Shameek Chakravarty, who founded the app, along with his wife, Gitanjali Rajamani, and Sudhakiran Balasubramaniam. The app, that launched over a year ago in Bengaluru, is now available in Hyderabad and Surat, and is about to be launched in Chennai in the next two months. “You can also place orders for vegetables on the app now, even before they are harvested,” he adds, “We hold weekly markets for organic farmers in Bengaluru.”
Farmizen’s motto of full traceability for consumers (you can see videos and photos of the farm on your app) certainly sounds tempting. As the recent viral video of a food-delivery boy tampering with the packaging of an order, eating the food inside, and re-sealing it, shows — when your food comes to your doorstep, you don’t know exactly what goes into it.
Fresh veg at home
The farm you rent out will be split into 12 raised beds, where you can plant up to 24 different varieties of vegetables. “We want to recreate the kitchen gardening experience,” says Shameek. Unlike in commercial farming, some vegetables may grow better than the others, depending on the soil type and weather conditions. However, that weeds out the ill-effects of monocropping. “Nature did not intend to raise just one crop. When you grow different varieties together, the symbiotic relationship between the crops will help control pests naturally,” he says. The other advantage with that, says Shameek, is that you have a deeper understanding of what food is traditionally good for you.
“We have forgotten the seasonality of food,” he says. “I can get any vegetable all throughout the year due to cold storage, and that means it has either been treated with chemicals and preservatives, or has lost a lot of nutrients.”
But when you grow your own vegetables, you can make educated, informed decisions. “For example, the next time I go to a market, and see big, white cauliflowers in summer, I know something’s wrong.”
Many of the families that visit their farms bring their kids along, who jump right into the mud and soil. There are even animals such as sheep, goats, and rabbits on some farms. “Basic farming practices should be mandatory in school education. An entire generation is growing up without that!” Shameek says.
How it works
Rent out 600 square feet of land at a field as close to home as possible.
Choose what you want to grow. (The app lists out suggestions according to the season).
Use the app to control what manure to use.
View feedback from farmers who will also use the app to help you keep in touch with how your farm is shaping up.
Watch videos and photos of your farm on the app.
Pay ₹2,500 per month that includes the use of land, repellents, manure, and delivery of produce.
For the community
One of Farmizen’s goals was to stabilise farmer incomes. “We have also seen a lot of people who had ancestral farm lands but had given up on farming, coming back to the profession after assurance of a stable income,” he says. “We also want to bring attention to women farmers who are generally ignored in mainstream media.”
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