Sohan Lal Commodity Management, India’s leading post-harvest management group (SLCM Group), announced the receipt of a ‘Patent Certificate’ from the patent office, Government of India for its application titled ‘Methods for real-time data management’ filed on 16 December 2013. SLCM Group is the only company in the Indian agriculture sector that has registered a technology patent in the Agri Logistics (Warehousing) segment to date that spans 75 years post-independence.
Since India’s independence, the agriculture sector has been growing steadily. Still, to date, the granary of India, which is the warehouse where the food security is stored, has pained the economy by posting a 10% loss of grains stored. This loss has been attributed to various factors like archaic storage systems, lack of infrastructure, ignorance of scientific methods etc.
What is interesting is that in 75 years. Although, in contrast, there has been tremendous advancement in all sectors, only one company in the Agri storage domain took it upon itself to do scientific research and come out with a technological solution to counter this with a solution that has the potential to bring in the second green revolution in Agriculture.
SLCM Group’s Agri Reac allows real-time monitoring of crops
Commenting on this momentous achievement, Sandeep Sabharwal, chief executive officer at the company, said, “Observing the increasing pace of technology penetration, I had the vision of ‘Phygitalizing’ the warehouse management system over a decade ago. With a dedicated team of professionals, we created ‘Agri Reach’, a system that enables effective warehousing solutions agnostic of infrastructure, geography, and crops. With a firm belief in our innovation and a passion for improving Indian agriculture, we applied for the patent 9 years ago. Today, it gives me immense pleasure to say that our patent application has received its accreditation from the Government of India. This brings us one step closer to revolutionizing agriculture at the ground level.”
Agri Reach, SLCM Group’s proprietary solution, allows real-time monitoring and management of crops. Under the umbrella, the invention offers diverse services such as audit receipts, quality control, and surveillance. This helps agriculture experts to maintain the health of stored crops and ensure optimum quality using a series of processes, audits, and real-time tracking of the facilities.
Agri Reach is capable of establishing industry-standard warehouse operations anywhere across the country within 24 hours.
The impact of Agri Reach implementation across the company’s business verticals has resulted in remarkable growth, which is considered an industry benchmark. In 2017, it handled Assets Under Management (AUM) worth INR 1010.9 crore per day. In comparison to this, the current outstanding AUM handled by the company per day has a net worth of INR 5322.75 crore (as of 20 March 2022).
Addressing the scalability potential, Sabharwal added, “Warehousing represents the Granaries of Agriculture, and Agri Reach can transform Agri storage across India. According to a study conducted by FICCI, Agri Reach can reduce post-harvest losses from 10% to 0.5%. By virtue of these numbers, Agri Reach can enable Indian Agriculture Industry to save over US$ 13 billion per annum, said the study. The impact of this figure will reflect improved productivity, efficiency, farmer income, and ultimately, better food security for the nation. “
Apart from this, SLCM Group is currently working on various other technologies that can efficiently integrate physical infrastructure with digitized enterprises, thereby strengthening the foundation of ‘Phygital’ agriculture supply chain.
