The Untold Rise of Punjab’s Collective Ecosystem

Source: Instagram account of Unati Agri Allied and Marketing Multistate Cooperative Society Ltd.

Farmers in India are struggling. Most own small plots—often no larger than two soccer fields—and grapple with limited market access, rising costs for seeds, fertilizers, and equipment, and shrinking profits. Many depend on government loan waivers just to stay afloat. At the same time, consumers contend with high inflation and a lack of transparency in the food supply chain, leaving both farmers and buyers at a disadvantage. Intermediaries, however, continue to profit, exacerbating social divides in a nation of over a billion people, where women remain largely excluded from the workforce and youth unemployment is pervasive.

Amid this challenging landscape, in the fertile plains of Punjab at the foothills of the Himalayas, the Unati Cooperative Marketing-cum-Processing Society Ltd. has been quietly transforming lives. Nestled near the Shiwalik Hills, at the outermost edge of the Himalayas, Unati draws on the region’s natural wealth and the collective efforts of its 1,200 members. By fostering sustainable livelihoods, safeguarding native species, and maintaining the delicate balance of local ecosystems, it is addressing some of the most pressing challenges faced by farmers.

Operating across 32,000 hectares of pristine forest—an area more than five times the size of Manhattan—Unati’s members harvest Indian blackberries, gooseberries, and medicinal herbs responsibly. These raw materials are processed into premium food products at a globally certified manufacturing facility, supplying major companies like Amazon, Dabur, and Apollo Pharma. The cooperative generates $7.6 million annually, ensures fair payments to farmers, and provides steady employment to 247 people, most of whom are women.

Unati’s Platform Cooperative

Central to Unati’s success is its platform cooperative, The Unati Agri Allied and Marketing Multistate Cooperative Society Ltd., an ambitious network connecting farmers, women entrepreneurs, processing units, and consumers. Its name is as expansive as the vast network it coordinates. This ecosystem will soon be anchored by a mobile app, set to launch in June 2025, designed as a seamless dashboard integrating these groups.

The app begins with farmers, helping them plan harvests to align with local processors—small-scale facilities that transform agricultural produce into products such as oils, flours, juices, pickles, and herbal extracts. It also guides farmers to nearby processors and includes an Enterprise Resource Planning system to manage resources like raw materials, inventory, and products, ensuring efficiency and transparency. This initiative builds on Punjab’s Green Revolution of the 1960s, a transformative period that established the region as India’s breadbasket through high-yield crops and mechanized farming. Yet, while agricultural output soared, small-scale farmers and rural women were often left on the margins. Unati’s model seeks to redress these imbalances, fostering sustainability and equity to uplift those overlooked by the earlier transformation.

An e-commerce platform extends the cooperative’s reach by connecting customers to Unati Behans—women entrepreneurs who oversee orders, deliver products directly to consumers, and manage offline purchases. These women also act as personal health guides, incorporating Ayurvedic principles into their sales approach, offering groceries alongside wellness services like pulse diagnosis and hypnotherapy. To support this delivery model, Unati has established Sehakari Vikas Kendras—local storage hubs that reduce costs, improve logistics, and enable equitable revenue sharing. By November 2024, the Unati Behans had already generated over $24,000 in sales, using electric vehicles to deliver products and creating sustainable connections between rural producers and urban consumers.

Building a Network for Primary Processing

While Unati Behans bridge the gap between processed goods and buyers, the cooperative has also addressed the challenge of fair prices for farmers, who are often at the mercy of volatile open markets. Many farmers selling crops like rice, sugarcane, or oilseeds demand a minimum support price from the government to protect against exploitation.

Unati envisions a future where farmers process their harvests into value-added products—such as oil, flour, or pulp—before selling them. This shift significantly increases earnings: for instance, aloe vera pulp can earn farmers 2.25 times more revenue even after accounting for processing costs. Processed goods also have longer shelf lives, reducing spoilage.

To make this vision a reality, Unati is establishing primary processing units near farms. This involves integrating existing processors into the network and assisting new micro-entrepreneurs, Farmer Producer Organizations, and Primary Agricultural Credit Societies in setting up additional units. These processing units ensure a sustainable supply of raw materials while unlocking higher incomes for farmers.

This approach has already yielded results. In Kashmir, Project Amudha used micro-processing units to process large quantities of apples directly on farms. In Rajasthan, Self-Help Group farmers processed amla (Indian gooseberry) at the farm level, with additional quantities refined by Unati into final products. In Punjab, cooperative-supported units convert sugarcane into jaggery powder and solid blocks, with nearly 900,000 pounds marketed annually.

Unati complements these efforts by collaborating with scientists and universities to develop new uses for underutilized crops like seabuckthorn, Indian blackberry, and myrobalans, transforming them into marketable products such as juices, syrups, and fruit bars.

The Unati Behan Network: A New Market Model

Ensuring that these processed goods reach consumers without reliance on costly middlemen is another cornerstone of Unati’s strategy. The Unati Behans play a vital role here. These women entrepreneurs not only distribute products but also forge a personal connection with consumers, combining modern tools like AI-driven customization with Ayurvedic principles. They sell groceries, offer wellness services, and perform traditional techniques like pulse diagnosis, hypnotherapy, and aura mapping.

The cooperative’s Sehakari Vikas Kendras, translated as Cooperative Development Centers, enhance this model by streamlining goods storage, reducing costs, and generating additional revenue to support smaller cooperatives. By November 2024, this network had already delivered measurable results, with 11 Unati Behans generating over $24,000 in sales and delivering affordable products via electric vehicles.

Unati’s innovation lies in three interconnected strategies: enabling farmers to process their crops locally, creating direct supply chains through women-led networks, and coordinating the entire ecosystem with digital tools that ensure transparency and equitable revenue sharing. By removing intermediaries, this model ensures fairer compensation for farmers while creating economic opportunities for women.

The cooperative’s app functions as the ecosystem’s orchestrator, harmonizing the interactions between farmers, processors, and distributors to build a decentralized and equitable supply chain. With India already home to over 83 million people in Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and more than 820,000 Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies, Unati’s approach has the potential to scale nationwide.

With mentorship and support, the cooperative hopes to replicate its success, creating a seamless “farm-to-factory-to-fork” ecosystem that uplifts rural communities and fosters sustainable growth. If this vision resonates with you, we welcome the opportunity to collaborate with incubators or accelerators to refine our model and tools further. Let’s talk.

Learn more about the authors: Varun Venugopal Gupta and Jyoti Saroop