Arush-Nagpal | Ayan Nagpal | Co founder | Agrocorp
Decades ago, India was primarily a farming country. With rapid development, industrialization and urbanization, the focus shifted from agriculture to other means of employment. However, owning a farmhouse remains a retirement dream for most Indians -a reminiscent of the past, where almost every house had a kitchen garden of its own.
A lot of our modern population wants to take up activities bringing them close to nature and make it a part of their lifestyle, but they don’t have the knowledge and the time to set up the basics. Agrocorp recognized this opportunity and introduced a concept where real estate and agriculture go hand in hand.
Agrocorp, India’s first organized Agro-Real Estate company, is a pioneer in developing communities of farm lands for their investors, cultivating timber forests and generating positive cash flows, quantifying the investment model not just with an asset heavy start but also adding value post sales by implementing various Agroforestry models.
The Idea/Spark
Agrocorp believes in the power of agriculture as a smart investment, but to draw people towards farming, it is very important to ensure that the process is easy and the economics are quantifiable.
Their aim is to offer a simple, easy and thorough process of buying and maintaining a farmhouse with complete transparency in all transactions and timely delivery. The entire range of services is packaged to ensure a hassle free experience.
Agrocorp ensures:
- Purchase of encumbrance free large parcels of land:All lands are procured only after thorough due diligence of the title in revenue records. Agrocorp has bought and sold over 20 million square feet of agri-land across eight projects and considers the following factors while doing so:
- Access from the motorable road
- The soil quality of the land
- Proximity to major developing zones of the area.
- Proximity to national highway and major landmarks
- Develop amenities:
- Boundaries: They have a team of skilled workers and advanced machinery set up to ensure fast completion of the boundary of large land parcels in order to develop gated farming societies.
- Land Levelling and Cleaning: Agrocorp’s skilled team of supervisors and workers, with latest equipment, ensure all smaller land parcels are delivered as flat land and are free of all the wild trees, bushes, stones etc. to enable best farming practices.
- Water Source and Irrigation System: Their specialized team of traditional and modern water point locaters and geologists mark potential points of water sources. All of Agrocorp’s farming societies have underground water lines, connected to each plot from the borewell for seamless water availability. They also have tie-ups with leading irrigation companies for installation of irrigation system as required.
- Plantation and Maintenance: If the clients don’t want to undertake an activity themselves, Agrocorp also provides the option to setup commercial timber plantation and maintenance of “Melia Dubia”, till maturity. They have an in-house team trained on the development and maintenance made available for a nominal additional payment.
- Delivery and Possession
Agrocorp also provides a separate entry for every farm, electricity connection for borewell functioning, internal metal roads for easy approach to each farm and street lights along the roads. After ensuring all amenities function properly, the completed farm-lands are handed over to the clients through a legal, transparent process.
Post-possession Agrocorp also offers shared services like 24 hours security, road maintenance and cleaning of land once in a year against a monthly maintenance amount.
The Glitches
Agrocorp wanted to explore the idea of “organized large scale farming” and understood the fundamentals. But as they moved ahead, they faced a lot of difficulties to get the basics right:
| Requirement | Opportunity |
| Large land bank and capital for infrastructure setup | Acquiring land is primary and most vital investment. Without proper knowledge of law and administration, the money invested can be on risk. |
| Setting up the infrastructure | Farming is all about the right infrastructure and the right inputs at the right time and a lot of effort. |
| Buyback assurance of produce | The biggest drawback of farming is that the farmer has fixed input cost, but the output prices of the produce are dependent on the market conditions. |
| Trained Manpower | Right maintenance is the key to success in terms of production capacity. Absence of trained and skilled farmers in tier 2 & tier 3 towns can make the farming very difficult. |
The Ideators
Ayan Nagpal and Arush Nagpal are the young entrepreneurs behind Agrocorp.
Ayan is a go-getter in life and a professional enthusiast who has played a major role since the inception of the company. His visionary, detailed, assertive and perfectionist approach has created a path which is taking Agrocorp to great heights at a steady pace.
Arush is a cool-headed visionary and financial planner who holds expertise in channelizing finances and managing operational requirements of the company. He has immense knowledge of all technical aspects in the entire scope of the business environment. This has helped turn the company’s vision into reality.
Profitable Ideas for Everyone
Any profitable business today gets scalability from an increase in the volume of users i.e. demand. As an organization, Agrocorp understands that in today’s era it is very essential for the consumer/people to understand the value of something, to be able to attract their attention both in terms of money and time. Ayan says, “The modern population will invest their time into farming practices only if it is not complicated and is beneficial. By combining Real Estate and Agriculture, we have been able achieving that by making the process simple and transparent.”
Agrocorp’s unique ideas have enabled people to
- Affordable farm houses with basic amenities
- Appropriate unit sizes (quarter, half and one acre)
- Shared maintenance facilities
- Transparency in all transactions where a majority of payment is accepted after the completion of work on site
Taking Care of the Future
It is Agrocorp’s vision to continuously innovate investments. The plan is to increase its communities to more than 2500 acres by the end of 2023. This reciprocates into 2500 new farming families and 2500 new influencers who will stay connected to the roots and encourage others to invest and earn. Agrocorp’s services not only reap financial benefits but also enables the owners to do their bit in giving back to society and the environment, by making the community a greener place to live.
