Young Turks who help farmers deal with vagaries of monsoon

The agrarian economy contributes almost 15% to India's GDP, in fact it employees almost half of India's workforce, but it is dependent on the vagaries of the weather. As the monsoon hits the Kerala coast, we decided to put the spot light on three young entrepreneurs who are betting big on the weather and helping you mitigate your losses. Here is a quick glimpse of what we have lined up:

[1]:Jatin Singh, Founder and MD Skymet: For 32 year old Jatin Singh turning entrepreneur meant weathering off competition from the government. He decided do to what the Indian Met Department has been doing for decades, forecasting the unpredictable weather. In 2003, he launched Skymet India's first and only private weather forecasting firm. Collecting data from the global telecommunication systems, Jatin provides weather derivatives and solutions that enable media, power, shipping, agriculture and telecom companies to plan better. But why did Jatin a journalist decide to bet on the weather?

[2]:Anil Bahuman, MD Agrocom: The 32-year old Anil Bahuman is hoping to release the stress farmers face every year as they wait for the seasons to change. Armed with a degree in artificial intelligence from the University of Georgia in the United States, Anil along with Dr Krithi Ramamritham developed aAQUA or almost all questions answered in 2003. Connecting agricultural experts to rural farmers through his innovation, Anil co-founded Agrocom a spin off from IIT Bombay that been replicating the aAqua model in 15 states since 2006. The venture has also installed 30 weather monitoring stations in Nashik and today reaches out to two lakh farmers. But offering solutions to this diverse underserved market has its own challenges.

[3]:Yogesh Patil, Head Operations NCMSL: He is helping Indian farmers deal with weather associated risks. Heading business operations at crop and weather intelligence group at the National Collateral Management Services is 29 year old Yogesh Patil. Incorporated in 2004 NCMSL an agricultural warehousing collateral management and certification services venture launched its innovative weather information service a year later. Starting up with 70 automatic weather stations in partnership with ICICI Lombard, today the venture has installed more than 800 weather stations across 16 states in India. Helping over 30 companies across insurance, agriculture, power distribution, commodity exchanges and even government organizations, NCMSL today has crossed a turnover of Rs four crores. Generating profits by selling weather data, providing value added services like preparation of isotherm maps and historical data cleaning, NCMSL charges its clients Rs 1500 to Rs 5000 per month to provide its solutions. So what are the challenges in managing the venture that predicts the unpredictable weather?

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