Mr. Ranjit Kumar

Mr. Ranjit Kumar comes from a traditional farming family. However, after completing his Master’s degree, he decided to move to the big smoke to chase his dreams. But fate had other plans! A few years after being in the city, his father was diagnosed with kidney failure, and to support his parents through treatment and recovery, he decided to move back to his village.

While back in his village in 2017, Ranjit started taking a keen interest in his land and decided to pursue farming, full-time. His days were spent developing a new varietal of nutmeg and mace that he calls the Pollachi variety, named after his town. 

This particular variety of mace is less susceptible to fungal attacks, is known for its thickness, and has the highest oil content in the world. In 2023, Business Insider covered to be the most expensive mace in the world.

A few years into his farming life, Ranjit started realising that the big city traders and commission agents exploited marginal farmers in his area.

These farmers came from humble backgrounds and had no exposure to the market, happily accepting what they were offered.

Most of the profits ended with the traders and middlemen rather than the farmers, who put their blood, sweat, and tears into growing the produce.

This is when Ranjit decided to take the matter into his own hands and encouraged farmers with small landholdings to come together and form a cooperative or an FPO.

He provided them with planting material for his newly developed varietal of nutmeg and mace. The aim was to get consistency in the quality of produce across various farms.

This was the first FPO of its kind in their district, specialising in nutmeg and mace crops.

In the year 2022, the cooperative was officially formed with about 50 farmers, and, within a few months of trading, they were able to break previous price records, getting almost a 10 percent higher price for their nutmeg as compared to what the traders offered.

In late 2023, Ranjit reported close to 100 farmers in his cooperative, and together they sold 12 tons of nutmeg and mace to a Dutch company.