Indian Farmer Entrepreneur Store Online Marketplace by Farmers, for Farmer | founded by Aniket Gharge

Aniket Gharge, a 28-year-old engineering graduate, who has been sharing stories of farmers and their entrepreneurship on his YouTube channel since December 2017, co-founded a distinctive platform called the Indian Farmer Entrepreneurs Store.

Five years ago, he initiated a YouTube channel to showcase the tales of farmers. Currently, he leads a specialized e-commerce platform that enables farmers to sell their products directly, bypassing intermediaries. Aniket Gharge, a 28-year-old engineering graduate from Satara, co-founded this exclusive platform known as Indian Farmer Entrepreneurs (IFE) Store. He has been capturing stories of farmers and their entrepreneurial journeys for his YouTube channel since December 2017.

Aniket Gharge considers his latest venture as a project that he undertook with a lot of passion and dedication. He has a personal connection to it as well, having grown up in a family of farmers in Vadgaon in Khatav taluka of Satara, where they cultivate sugarcane and seasonal crops. The world of farming and the tales of farmers have intrigued him since a young age, and his YouTube channel allowed him to delve deeper into this field.As he traveled around, he became aware that many farmers were encountering difficulties in accessing the right markets to sell their products. Often, their value-added goods had to be sold in local markets where they were unable to secure a fair price. 

In his opinion, what was lacking was an appropriate platform for farmers to directly connect with the end consumer. This realization led to the inception of the IFE Store, which he co-founded with his friend Jay Sidhpura on March 1, 2022. Aniket Gharge stated that it took an additional seven months to ensure that the platform was entirely operational.

According to Aniket Gharge, farm entrepreneurs are frequently treated unfairly by many e-commerce platforms. He explained that these platforms usually have middlemen posing as suppliers who purchase goods from farmers and resell them elsewhere. However, the fundamental concept behind their platform is to empower farmers to sell their products directly. Currently, the IFE Store has onboarded 16 farmers whose products are being sold directly to consumers.

The IFE Store offers an assortment of products such as chicken pickle, rose water, rose syrup, desi ghee, millets, and millet products. Aniket Gharge mentioned that they have partnered with local courier companies and Indian Post for deliveries. Although they have a warehouse in Satara, in certain instances, the farmers dispatch the products directly from their end.