Pratikhaya Farmer Producer Company Limited

Pratikhaya Farmer Producer Company Limited operates out of Padmapur in Rayagada. The main point of contact is Arati Parida, and that’s where most of the activity happens. Rayagada is a beautiful place but it’s a bit out of the way, which brings its own set of challenges for us. We spend our mornings checking in with the farmers who live in the surrounding hills and plains. There is a lot of walking and riding motorbikes involved to reach everyone. The office in Padmapur is usually cluttered with bags, registers, and samples of what’s being grown this season. We don’t have a fancy website or a marketing team. If someone needs to talk to us, they usually just show up or call Arati’s mobile. We talk a lot about the soil and the lack of rain when it’s dry, or the flooded paths when it’s wet. It’s a simple life, focused on the basics of farming and selling. Sometimes the mobile network is patchy, so we have to wait until we get to a better spot to send messages or make calls to the distributors. It’s a small group of us trying to manage the harvest for a bunch of families. We don’t use big words or have long meetings about strategy. We just look at what we have, figure out where it needs to go, and try to get a decent price for the effort put in.