Herboliv- A value proposition by Mivipro

My innovation- HERBOLIV+ was a need based innovation developed to protect the crops in our 40 years old organic orchard (Viswa Organic Farm—Kongahalli village, Thalavadi, Sathy Taluk, Tamil Nadu) which is situated 1 km from forest foothills. Intrusion of wild elephants & wild boar & deer were seen from 2000 onwards. Intrusion was rare at those times. Severe intrusion started from 2008 onwards which resulted in crop damage & infrastructure (fence) damage. This forced me to develop a solution since our existing herbal concoction to protect crops from pest & disease was not able to protect the crops from wild animals.

Having tried various combinations for more than a year, I ended up with either an expensive solution or it was not a sustainable solution. Started to use my academic background & utilize available resources from our organic orhcard & collected different botanicals from near by forest. Finally, a bio liquid with combination of different botanicals & fruit extracts & By products of Kongahalli breed cow grazing inside our farm was utilized. It was found to be effective against wild elephants & wild boars, but not effective against wild birds. Further lots of In-house R&D was carried out and tested the same in our farm itself.

Finally, when I was able to see the efficacy in controlling wild elephant, wild boar, deer, parrots, bats, porcupine intruding in our farm, I took it for helping other vulnerable farmers with the help of MYRADA—ICAR, KVK in Erode district and received positive feedback from them.

Further, I took it for scientific validation to TBI—TNAU under their incubation support. As suggested by TBI—TNAU my bio liquid was given to Tiruvannamalai Agri dept where they faced severe rodents intrusion and crop loss in paddy. They tested in their vulnerable farmers fields and shared positive observation along with farmers heartfelt feedback.

Then after receiving few valuable feedback by different users, TBI took it for scientific testing under TNAU forest college & research institute (FC&RI). Received their positive test report by end of the year 2015. They found it as an effective Anti-feedant & observed increase in crop yield by more than 20% & increase in soil biologicals considerably.

During TNAU testing in their fields, they also took on field testing in Swami Dayananda Sarawathi Vegetable garden at Anaikatti , Coimbatore where nine varieties of vegetables were grown by us. This field was often intruded by wild elephants & deer & peacock. We were conducting on farm trials for one year and documented successful control of elephant, deer & peacock which use to damage the crops. Valuable feedback of Swamiji is as below.

It was also tested by Erode district forest department in the year 2016 and positive observation and farmers feedback was documented. Further, my HERBOLIV+ was tested in various farmers fields at different geographies starting from Kanyakumari to Kashmir saffron fields to control porcupine intrusion.

Various testing & developments was carried out simultaneously as I wanted to test on different wild animals & different wild birds & rodents in different crops and in different geographies. This literally took me a long time as intrusion of wild animals & wild birds in different crops will occur in different seasons. With lots of persuasion & perseverance, I was able to test & observe positive effect against the below:

It was further given for thrid party validation to MYRADA-KVK where they tested in their DFI (doubling farmers income) villages at Gobi Taluk and found very effective against wild boar, peacock, rodents in paddy & banana & sugarcane fields. They took it as part of their OFT (On Farm Trials) under ICAR system.

I was nominated and selected by ICAR and recognized as Farmer Innovator in the year 2019 during Farmer Innovators Conclave conducted in IIT-Delhi. Below is their recognition certificate.

Further on the suggestion of our Incubator TBI-TNAU & MYRADA-ICAR,KVK in Erode district, they asked me to test the impact on health of wild animals/birds/rodents as HERBOLIV+ was odour & taste based repellent where animals/birds /rodents will get repelled by its odour or will enter the fields and taste & move away since it won’t be palatable. Hence many wild life enthusiasts were concerned about wild life health. So, I gave it for organic certification & Toxicology studies and obtained positive test reports & certificates respectively in the year 2019.

Further in the year 2020, under the support & guidance of Erode district KVK & ICAR-ATARI Zone X & Zone II, HERBOLIV+ was taken for testing against Desert locust swarms in Rajasthan. Hanumangarh district KVK tested in cotton fields and observed it to be effective. Their observation report is as below.

Further Kerala State Forest Department took it for testing under their district forest office in Palakkad & Mannarkad and found it as effective in controlling wild boar, elephant & peacock in tapioca & banana fields.

Then, formed my start up Mivipro Products Pvt Ltd in 04.12.2020. Innovative HERBOLIV+ Technology was transferred from my existing company where it was developed & standardized. Mivipro developed a business model (cluster model) where predominantly grown crop across the country which faced Man-Animal conflict problems were selected and planned to spray through Drones. Linear model focussing on B2B & B2B2C was also in place. The model is implemented through suitable Implementing Agency who has accessibility to the vulnerable fields and having networking ability with farmers.

My startup is incubated by TBI—TNAU & registered in start up India & recognized by DIPP. My startup was selected under Tamil Nadu Startup S2G sandbox programme in 2021. Mivipro was able to reach to 12 states and acquired more than 200 customers and closed the FY 2020-21 for Rs.46 lakhs. Due to Covid pandemic, we could not implement our business model in different places as planned.

In the year 2020 & 2021, TBI took efforts through Tamil Nadu State Agriculture University, Coimbatore which recommended my Innovative HERBOLIV+ to state government in their Scientific Workers Conference (SWC). They are in the process of submitting all required papers to the state government. On submission of their systematic field test reports, it is expected that state government will take all possible efforts to reach this technology across the state to vulnerable farmers through their available schemes or through their respective line departments.

During 2021, Mivipro implemented its cluster model through Rotary club of Gobi—3202 and with MYRADA—KVK as its Implementing agency. In October 2020, we implemented in 225 acres of paddy fields and effectively controlled rodents by 60% & wild boar, peacock intrusion by 95% and improved the yield by average 15% and avoided using top fertilizer urea & pesticides in 80% of the fields. Results were followed up & documented by Erode district KVK. Sample User data is as below.

Further starting from April 2021 onwards, we are planning to implement cluster model in nine districts of Tamil Nadu & three districts of Andhra Pradesh & one district in Karnataka & one district in Kerala. Total thirteen districts has been identified and tied up with suitable Implementing Agencies. In all thirteen districts, spraying through drones for paddy & groundnut crop along with banana, sugarcane & arecanut in few places have been planned in our cluster model.

Plan for FY 2021-22 is to reach 2500-3000 acres land and take it pan India from next year onwards. Few interested channel partners in Sri Lanka & Africa are in discussion with us as they have severe problems of monkey, peacock & cows intrusion respectively.

My Innovation is very unique as it has seven benefits in single liquid. Below is the product detail.

We further supported the farmers by doing a pilot for value addition of paddy (grown using my innovative Herboliv+ in cluster model) to rice using traditional huller mill and branding in their name and market linkage was done. The product was released by KVK during a virtual meeting in front of Planning Commission member of India who appreciated the farmer and myself during the virtual meeting for the efforts taken to provide residue free produce to consumers and appreciated the farmer for coming forward to do such value addition and marketing.

My innovation helps to create an Impact in the entire ecosystem involved. It improves the land ecosystem & farming ecosystem & market ecosystem & social ecosystem considerably. My innovation helps to solve man-animal conflict in Ahimsa method without killing or harming the animals/birds/rodents.

Since my start up helps farmers to improve the quality, taste & shelf life of end produce considerably in a sustainable manner, this will create lot of opportunities for doing effective market linkage and work with food industries who do contract farming.

Our Start up can help to bridge the supply & demand gap in paddy which is forecasted for the year 2025 because of growing population and help to reduce the dependency on import of oil (groundnut) due to poor yields compared with other countries & because of crop loss happening by wild animals & wild birds intrusion. Business model in our start up meets twelve sustainable development goals (SDG) of United Nations.

Market size for our business is very large in India and what we plan to achieve is just a drop in the ocean.

Cluster model will be almost 90% of our business. It focused on predominantly cultivated crops across the country which faces man-animal conflict problems. Crops selected under cluster model are paddy, groundnut, banana, sugarcane, wheat & saffron. Since saffron being legendary crop of Kashmir is under the verge of extinction due to crop loss by porcupine intrusion & other yield related issues, we planned to include that crop in our cluster model.

Mr. G.V. Vishwanathan, M.A. Philosophy

Executive Director

Experience- 40 years

Mr. G.V. Sudarshan, B.Sc. Biochemistry

Managing Director

Experience 19 years

Our Team has clear Vision & Mission to create disruption in Agriculture sector with our Innovative Herbal based cost effective sustainable solutions. Our Team is capable to execute Pan India plan in which we have selected fifteen states across the country to implement our cluster model in 162 districts. We also have plans to take it global as severe economic loss is happening due to wild animals & domestic animals intrusion in countries like Sri Lanka & Africa.

Mivipro is one amongst the 17 winning startups of Social Alpha's Agritech Innovations 2.0 (https://www.socialalpha.org/announcement/meet-the-17-winning-startups-of-our-agritech-innovations-challenge-2-0/)

Contributed by- Mr. G.V. Sudarshan, Managing Director, Mivipro