A Public Charitable Trust Registered Under Section 9 of KSR ACT 1960
Registration no. DRB3/SOR/238/2018-19
A social worker by heart and a professional salesman - what could connect the two of us? We both were deeply influenced by people who had dedicated their lives to a larger purpose.
While I was influenced by Mr.Kaushlendra of Kaushalya Foundation who had found a unique and powerful way of influencing communities around them, Sanjeev discovered the power of empathy while travelling to rural India when he was working with Tata Sky and saw how farmers were falling ill and losing their lives while spraying chemicals on crops. As a result he thought of a taluk completely organic where no chemicals and fertilizers will be used to grow crops, an unprecedented response to this, Sanjeev saw the entire village community unite for a common purpose that was much larger than themselves and personal differences.
The Idea behind ACRE FOUNDATION emerged in 2018 and after lot of research we finalised on Hoskote Taluk which was fighting with Dried up Lakes 165 lakes dried out of 168 lakes, 50% of land being covered by eucalyptus trees which was pushing ground water to 1500 feet and below and heavy dependence on middlemen for procurement of their produce resulting in lower income for their crops.
Our Idea was to leverage the power of the commuter on NH75 and internet to connect individuals who want to make a difference in as sustainable manner, to thousands of individuals who are either denied or not offered Organic produce. By tapping into the power of many, and decentralising the source of supply, we would be able to significantly increase the earning of our farmers. We shared this idea with our well-wishers who quickly validated it as something that could potentially change the lives of millions of farmers.
What next? We had an idea but we soon realised that ideas don’t necessarily get funded When all our requests to secure seed funding were promptly rejected. We then decided to bootstrap ACRE FOUNDATION with our own savings of 5 Million. From 2018 till date , we are working to help farmers how to make organic compost from his home and cattle waste with in 15days reducing their cost of production and providing them with Bio products.
Our mandate is simple – make organic produce affordable to consumers and increase farmers earnings. We made mistakes but quickly learnt from those and continued to build robust systems. The more open and transparent we are ,the more support we get from farmers.
In 2020 ,Now when we wanted to accelerate, we started facing resistance from middlemen’s, agents and wholesalers who have been traditionally controlling our farmers and define market prices for decades. So we decided to have our own market where there will be no middlemen and agents and farmers will be able to sell directly or through e-commerce to consumer. For which we have leased out 3 Acres of land on NH75 and trying to get financial support from financial institution’s or by raising through crowd funding.
ACRE strives to collaborate with various entities to provide a holistic solution.
Farmers have been traditionally selling their produce through the middlemen & traders.
Reduced ground level water has lead farmers towards excessive use of chemicals & fertilizers
Once called “A paradise for bird lovers”
No. of Lakes previously: 168
Current Situation:
About 60% of Hoskote is covered by eucalyptus trees