Pakistan's farms are top 10 in output, bottom 50 in yield

चलो मैं साबतिना से रात welcome back to another episode of Thought Bone Things. आज हमारे साथ मौजूद है एक बहुत ही खास मेहमान जो कि शदीर ढूंढने के बाद मुझे finally Pakistan में एक ऐसे साथ मिलकर जिनसे मैं यह conversation नबरदस्त. So, मोहम्मद, मुझे पहले तो यह बताएं कि how are you?

I'm really well. Thank you. It's nice to be in इस्लामाबाद. मैं actually अभी recently London से move हूं. मुझे तकरीबन दस दिन हुए हैं. Already I've visited a number of places and I actually have always had a soft spot for इस्लाम बाद. Let me put it that way. चलिए, इस्लाम बाद welcome भी आपको बड़ा अच्छा किया है. I don't know आप लोगों को आवाज़ आ रही नहीं आज लेकिन एक तूफान आया बस और हमारी खिड़की के ऊपर जो है ना वह बारिश की चींटों की आवाज़ें आ रही हैं.

I am gonna start conversation with just trying to understand a bit about शिराली life and you know कहाँ पर आप पैदा हुए, कहाँ पर education ली and so on.

तो जी मैं मेरी पैदाइश कराची में थी. I think मैं चार या पांच साल का था जब मेरे parents लाहौर shift हुए and फिर मैं actually through my early life लाहौर में ही रहा until my A levels. High school खेलने उसको अब और मैं एक ही school में रहा throughout that whole कौन कौन सा school था? यह Beaconhouse Garden Town Branch. सही है. Wonderful place, amazing memories of the school and still friends that I have that, you know, I knew from class two. Right. That I am in touch with. और यह कौन सी year था when you graduated high school? It would have been 1996

or '97, something like that. Right. जी. And then for your bachelor's?

For my bachelor's I went to Queen Mary, University of London. वहां से मैंने economics की degree की. लेकिन actually मैं academically orientated कभी ज़्यादा नहीं था. I used to get distracted with sort of projects and things like that. Right. तो अपने second year में मैंने एक startup के साथ काम करना शुरू कर दिया. On a part time basis to begin with और फिर अपने third year को बहुत ज़्यादा neglect करके full time मैंने एक startup के साथ वहां पर काम करना It is '97. No sorry, I I with 9697 really I met my o levels. Ok. 99

में मैंने अपने levels complete किए so I moved just on the turn of the millennium. Okay, okay. And still very early on like उस time पर तो बंदा कहता है कि यार you know मैं economics का रहा किसी bank में घुसता हूँ.

हाँ जी. Actually मैंने भी उसको consider किया था और मैंने in fact यहाँ पर Pakistan में एक bank में internship की थी. अच्छा. और it was one of the most boring things that I ever taken. Like, it really put me off for a, for a very very long time. मेरे से हुआ नहीं हुआ. Right. So, I I really liked the fact कि जो startup को मैंने join किया था, वह बहुत early stage company थी. Mhmm. They had a very sort of collegiate and kind of fantastic culture. तो उधर मैं काफ़ी बlossom हुआ. Similar to Beacon House, to be honest. Like, you know, I I I have a lot of fond memories, lot of amazing friendships that were created in Beacon House and what I really particularly जो मुझे उसकी एक बात बहुत पसंद थी, वह एक बहुत grounded सा school था, right? Students और मेरे जो friends थे, वह हर walks of life से थे. अच्छा. And एक बहुत बड़ा school भी था. हमारी class sizes बहुत बड़ी थी and things and all boys भी था. तो actually it was a lot of fun. I feel like यह आपने बड़ी interesting बात बोली है Beacon House के बारे में. Because Beacon House actually has that,

like अगर socioeconomic class wise देखें ना तो they have a very good variation. बिल्कुल. You've got kids from who are from very comfortable families and then you have kids जो कि parents ने बड़ी जान मार के पैसा जोड़कर जी मैं Beacon House से भेज रहा बच्चे को ताकि वह social mobility जाए And when you are in that school, you don't, you don't really care or know about the backgrounds. You just, you know, all on the same level. Exactly यह चीज़ है and actually,

you know, what I found was कि there was a level of sort of a desire or hunger in the students. तो मेरे जो batchmates थे, if you look across the world, काफ़ी ऐसे लोग हैं जो बहुत like amazingly successful लोग हैं उस batch में से. And I think वह वह उसी एक grounding का एक factor था, You you saw the hunger and actually like you wanted some of it and like you know people were in that environment जहां पर

they they just had that driving ambition. Growth and healthy environment, तरह 90 से nine, two thousand में you went to England and then you you stayed there for a good part of the next two decades. Twenty

two years. Twenty two years. Yes, that's right. Tremendous. And again, देखिए, England, London in particular is, a second home. Mhmm. It preserved my home until quite recently, but it's definitely, my second home now. Udder Bebort Time Guzara, and actually I have some amazing friendships, and even family there. तो it's a place very close to my heart. And you've moved effectively to Pakistan या आप कभी जी. On and off नहीं जी. Lock, stock and barrel with my wife and kids. With wife and kids? With with the whole world. I would assume that the kids were born and raised in The UK. They were indeed. My older one is 10 years old. So we were a little bit concerned because he was like right on the edge कि पता नहीं और उसके दोस्त वगैरह भी थे उधर. तो एक थोड़ा सा worry था हमारा. But I think इसमें एक यह भी चीज़ थी कि हम at least हर साल एक दफाते थे वापस. Right. तो थोड़ा सा connected थे वह कल्चे के साथ? Like घर पर तो बहुत ज़्यादा connected. Right. Close to their खाला, you know, close to their पप्पो in fact, you know, close to their दादी and things like that. तो, you know, it was a bit of a soft landing but what we were more worried about was कि actually दोस्तों को कैसे छोड़ेंगे? यहां पर कैसे deal करेंगे? फ़र्क है ना? मतलब आप उसको देखें हमारे लिए it's comparatively

who really been born and but I think वैसे इस तरह से it was smart के

दो तीन और साल गुज़र जाते ना वह. Teenage में करना था उन्होंने and that it would have been impossible. देखिए मुज़मिल I wish that इसके अंदर इतनी planning थी कि मैं आपको बोलूंगी हमने बड़ा plan किया मगर नहीं थी. I think इसमें luck भी बहुत involved था. Think फामदार के साथ जो timing हुई है, it kind of just happened at the right time. Right. And this this particular switch,

was this, I mean, focused on फामदार? Absolutely. Was different by फामदार? Entirely. Okay.

तो you know कुछ मैं तकरीबन एक you could say three to four months or six months something like that London में बैठ के यह काम कर रहा था. So you left your job? I left my job yes. मैं एक economics degree का रहा था तो मेरे जो CFO थे he sort of said come and help me and I ended up sort of helping on multiple fundraising rounds. तो हमारा जो आखिरी round था वह तकरीबन नवे million pound का था. अच्छा. तो उसके बाद और एक McKinsey की team थी जो हमें help कर रही थी. तो उनके partner के साथ मेरी काफी kind of closely मैं उनके साथ काम कर रहा था. उन्होंने मुझे फिर कहा कि जी आप McKinsey क्यों नहीं apply करते? Come join us. You seem to be somebody who might be able to fit in. मैंने London office join किया, वहां पर मैंने तीन साल लगाए, mostly in healthcare, improving hospitals, improving kind of the organizations that in the NHS ran hospitals and things like that. और मैं थोड़ा kind of उस lifestyle से तंग आ गया, you know. Mackenzie

is aggressive.

Ah, to be honest, I found it fascinating. You know, I didn't I didn't think of it as an aggressive place at all, but certainly there was one thing which was actually there was a lot of traveling involved. I was, trying to raise a family. At the time, had a very young family. Right. And, you know, Gibran who is my oldest son, he was like one or two at the time. तो, उसकी वजह से फिर मैंने actually सोचा कि get into sort of corporate life or whatever. तो मैंने British Telecom BT को join किया. तो उनके talent pool में उनका एक program होता था future leaders program. उसके ऊपर मैंने join किया. It was quite fantastic. पहले दो साल वह आपको business की हर part को दिखाते हैं. अच्छा. And you have some amazing sponsors, the board and people like that. Then you get to sort of see how the organization works because it's, it was a beast of an organization. डेढ़ लाख लोग काम करते थे BT के लिए. अच्छा.

यह उनकी सबसे बड़ी telecom

का? Europe का तो मुझे नहीं बताऊंगा कि certainly UK की सबसे बड़ी. और इनका essentially है क्या? यह आपका

fiber to the home type है या is it like cell phone? So everything from infrastructure which means pipes in the ground. Right. To mobile.

So, it's and now a whole lot of other things as well. Right. You know, so the largest mobile operator, the largest broadband operator, the largest owner of infrastructure, and a natural monopoly to be honest because it used to be owned by the state और वह privatized हो गई. Right. तो, luckily, you know, उधर मेरे थोड़े अच्छे associations बने with the management, or the senior management and I ended up actually in one of the divisions which is called OpenReach जो broadband basically provide करता है. तो fiber broadband की जो journey थी UK के अंदर उसको मैंने kind of start to end follow किया basically. अच्छा. And initially मैं finance वाली site पर था. फिर वहां से मैं निकला और मैं commercial site पर आ गया. तो मेरा जो last role था वह GM commercial for broadband in The UK था. Right. And it was fantastic because I was responsible for creating products that actually people connect to in their homes and things like that. So I love that aspect of it. Like, real impact, life. Exactly exactly. And it was good clean work. You know, कोई उसमें, you know, I never sort of had any burden on my conscience that I was involved in something that was, you know, not, completely clean and had

a good impact. अब इसके ऊपर जाएगा क्योंकि title के ऊपर already लोग इस तरफ रागय भोगे होंगे. Farm दार हमने दो तीन दफा बोला था. अब मैं आपको थोड़ा सा बताना चाहता हूं कि हम telco की इस खूबसूरत journey और McKinsey की journey से अब आने वाले हैं हम farming के ऊपर. And and and this is probably the most fascinating aspect. यह GM of British Telecom. जी. You clearly seem to have a lucrative comfortable career and life and. जी. अलहमदारिल्ला. अलहमदारिल्ला and and suddenly you decide कि यार मैंने Pakistan में जाकर उनके फलों की या you know गंदों की yield बेहतर करनी है. What's that thought process? Like why does one go?

देखिए it didn't happen overnight. It actually the journey started quite early on. So back in 2005, sorry, 2015, uh-uh, we decided कि हमने अपने farm के, my family background is farming, uh-uh, साधिकाबाद from my mother's side and शेख उबड़ा from my father's side. तो we decided कि हम अपने farms को किस तरीके से बेहतर तरीके से utilize करें because actually उनको हम utilize कर नहीं रहे थे. और farms में हो क्या रहा था उस वक्त? Basically leas में थे सारे, mostly. अच्छा. ठीक है? जो हमारे mango के orchards थे वह हम व्यापारियों को दे देते थे. व्यापारी क्या होता है? आरती, for example. So contractor,

right? अच्छा, आरती, my understanding was an often आरती was कि जो कि basically दरमियान में middleman होता है, जो कि आपको credit देता है और जो कि आपका मार उठा के मण्डी में बेचता है?

और ये lump sum आपको amount दे देते थे? Lump sum तो नहीं मगर तोड़ तोड़ के basically but in good amounts, right? यानी कि आपको may be 20% at a time उसकी value मिल जाती थी broken over the cost of the year. Right. तो उस journey पर हम शुरू हुए. तो हमने अपने mangoes के साथ शुरू किया. उनको हमने UK export किया. उस वक्त मैं London में बैठा हुआ था. Right. तो, you know, हम हम लोग यह समझते थे कि जी हमारे mangoes तो west in the world हैं. हां. और जब मैंने उनको देखा कि वह London की markets में आए, उनको मैंने वहां पर actually market करने की कोशिश की तो मुझे actually my eyes were opened. हां. मुझे पता लगा कि actually हमारे mangoes तो bottom of the pile हैं. अच्छा. You know, उनकी quality was really poor. The way that we were growing them didn't do justice to the varieties that we have. And then actually the way that we were transporting them and things like that weren't great either.

Correct. तो Mangoes

चार dollar का एक mango मिलता है और अब ज़रीर हो जाते हैं कि America और. चार से भी ज़्यादा का होगा क्योंकि actually London के अंदर जो America से बहुत करीब है, तकरीबन चार pound का एक डब्बा होता जिसमें दो या तीन mangoes होते हैं. हाँ. और उसकी वजह यह है कि actually वह air freight होता है. Right. तो आप mangoes की price नहीं pay कर रहे हैं, आप ticket की price pay कर रहे हैं. Oh. That's the reason why. Right, but can they be transported through the sea or would they drive? Actually, potentially, potentially last I think two years ago we actually sent containers of चौसा mangoes to The UAE. Ok. Which had not been done that frequently because वह travel नहीं करते ज़्यादा. And they came out They were totally fine. They were totally fine. तो उसमें क्या वह refrigeration and वह चीज़ें मैंने बोला था. हां जी, वह चीज़ें supply chain तो आपको sort out करनी पड़ती है but actually back to my earlier point, supply chain is not the answer. Because हमने जब इसके साथ experimentation की, when we realized that our quality was really poor, तो the first place we went to a supply chain. So we installed a blast chiller at the farm to pre cool the mangoes after harvesting. उसके बाद हमने एक cold chain ली, हमने reefer containers try किए, हमने modified atmosphere containers try किए. उसके बाद मैं turkey गया. मैं turkey से amazing packaging मिलती है modified atmosphere packaging और यह मैं यह जो हमारे सारे startup ecosystem में actually fresh fruit B2B site पर हैं, उनको भी मैंने यह बताया कि actually यह आप use करें shelf life के लिए बहुत ज़बरदस्त है. Definitely हमें यह चीज़ पता लगी कि आप shelf life एक हफ्ते से या दो हफ्ते से elongate कर सकते हो. कितनी elongate कर सकते हैं? Fourteen days let's say, लेकिन अगर आपके product की underlying quality ही खराब है, तो आप वह गंदे quality की चीज़ की shelf life को elongate कर रहे हैं. अच्छा, अगर मैं आपसे पूछूं कि when you, you mention quality multiple times. जी. What do you mean by that? Because when I see quality,

तो मुझे तो as a average user में market जाता हूं, मुझे एक सख़्ताम नज़र आता है, मैं उसको

उसको consumers market के अंदर हाथ नहीं लगाते. Right? Actually यह consumer behavior थोड़ा सा, in my opinion I don't like it. I think people should But it's be

true, absolutely. It's, it's a 100% true. Yeah, yeah. I think people should be taught otherwise but that is the reality. I mean if I go to The US and I look at sorry मैं US का तो वो दे रहा मैं UK कभी आया नहीं हूँ. Same चीज़. But it's a beautiful place but वहाँ पर मुझे दिल करता है fruit ज़्यादा खाने का मैंने वो over time यह realize किया kids all really about the presentation.

London में क्या होता था कि जब हम लोग wholesalers को अपने आम बेच देते हैं, हम board आगे retailers को बेच देते हैं तो मैं जाकर retailers कभी उनकी दुकानों के buyers दे रहा loiter करके देखता था कि हो क्या रहता है. And what people used to do is they would take the bad one, take it out of the box, replace it with a good one and then take that box. Right. तो at the end of the day एक bad mangoes का pile बना होता था. ठीक है? जो 20%, 25% आपका बिल्कुल mango waste हो गया. Right. Right? वह अंदर से बेशक ठीक हो, बाहर से वह गंदा लग रहा. Right? So, एक quality में aspect आ जाता है the look of it. Right. The second one is the consistency of it. What do I mean by that? कई mangoes में बड़े different sizes होते हैं, right? एक तो varietal differences होते हैं. लंगराव छोटा सा होता है, आपके consistency नहीं है in the way that mangoes are growing. Right. That actually really hurts your quality as well. नहीं so, ये mangoes जो हैं ये ये breeds हैं ना? एक particular breed जो है वह एक particular size की होगी? नहीं, एक particular breed में भी size variation आ जाती है. So Within the same tree? Yes, within the same tree and actually if a tree has too much fruit on it, उसका size छोटा होगा. If a tree is actually grown in a way जहां पर आप उसको kind of prune करते हो और उसके fruit को manage करते हो you will get better sized fruit. अच्छा so it's all part of how you work on it. Absolutely right. Interesting

and and and obviously the variation can so what I am trying to understand is एक तो आपका हो गया ना जब आप गए हैं और जाके आपने क्या कहलाता है what's the word for it जब आप उठाते हैं fruit को. जी pluck करते हैं उसको. Pluck करते हैं वो करते हैं harvest कटाएं. Harvest से पहले एक role है और harvest के बाद एक role है. एक harvest के बाद का role है जिसमें आपने कहा कि यार मेरे पास सारा माल आ रहा उसको सबको एक जगह पर डालने के बजाय sorter लगाओ like. Yes. तो what I think कि इसके जितना मैं बाहर की factories देखता हूं तो वह जो है जी एक एक automated system है जिसके through वह चीज़ों को already इतना ज़्यादा उन्होंने segment किया हुआ है कि now you know what you are getting and and the more you know what to expect, the more satisfaction you will be. बिल्कुल ऐसी है. देखिए but if you have a very large orchard

जहा पे आप sort करके एक container load of good quality consistently sized mangoes भेज सकते हो, the rest of it kind of gets spoiled or like उसको इतना price नहीं लगती and things like that. However, if you don't have a very large orchard तो फिर आपके पास choice ही कोई नहीं होती but the mix, right? And a lot of that happens. Right. And उनकी quality के differences sorry उनके जो mango के size के differences होते हैं, वह भी जिस तरह आप mangoes को grow कर रहे हैं उस पर dependent होते हैं, is my point. So quality के अंदर consistency भी आती है. And then the other thing is the actual, जैसे आपने earlier बोला था सख़्त mango, right? So आपके mango का texture क्या है? उसका taste क्या है? That is the third aspect of it. और हमें अपने farm के ऊपर multiple issues आ रहे थे with mangoes going soft. अच्छा. And इस चीज़ को actually cold chain fix नहीं कर सकती, right? Even if you keep the preserve the skin of the mango for longer, if it's soft inside, it's more like क्या मस्त रहता? यह growing का मसला था. Growing का मसला था. Right? इस तरह के मसलों को हम लोगों ने tackle करने की कोशिश की. So, when we tried supply chain and we realized there were maybe some issues but not fundamental ones that we could solve, but the fundamental ones remained unsolved. We actually came back to the farm. Okay. And उस वक्त हमने experiments करने शुरू किए drones के साथ. हमने जाकर drone खरीदा, एक multi spectral camera खरीदा. उस drone को खुद उराया, उसकी multi spectral images ली. हमने satellite imagery को के साथ experiments करने शुरू कर दिए. हमने sensors लगाए, weather stations को देखा, things like that. And after about eighteen months of doing that, we saw step change, right? हमारी consistency बेहतर हो रही थी. हमारा fruit दरख्तों के ऊपर ज़्यादा था क्योंकि droppings कम हो रही थी. हमारा पानी तकरीबन पचास percent कम लग रहा था. अच्छा. हमारा fertilizer बच रहा था about 30%. हमारे, so in-in essence हमारी quality बेहतर होगी, हमारी yield बेहतर होगी, हमारी input cost कम होगी और हमारी पानी की efficiency ज़्यादा होगी. Tell me about the पानी की efficiency. How does that work? So basically what we do, there's a number of ways of actually looking at this but the simplest way of looking at it is कि आप plant का moisture level detect करो, right? A lot of people in agriculture they look at the soil और हमारा एक concept है वत्तर का, right? What's that? वत्तर is the land is dried up. So if the land is dried up, आप उसको पानी लगा दो. And हम actually generally Pakistan में outside of drip irrigation, which is an amazing solution for this but expensive, हम लोग flood irrigate करते हैं. Right. When you flood land with water, 75% of it either evaporates or transpires, evapotranspiration. Right. यह एक बड़ी known चीज़ है जो FAO वगैरह इन सारों ने Pakistan में की ओर उन्होंने देखा है, right? अब पानी हमें वैसे ही नहीं मिलता मुफ्त का. तो हमारे area के अंदर आपको पानी pump करना पड़ता है using diesel and electricity. So, imagine wasting 75% of the diesel and electricity that you are using, right? Right, and that's a huge cost overrun, century. It's, it's, it's a big cost. तो हम लोग क्या करते हैं, we look at plant moisture levels. We call it the plant stress report और उस plant stress report को आप अपनी land को बड़े easily segment कर सकते हो कि इस acre में मैंने पानी लगाना है, इस acre में मैंने पानी नहीं लगाना. ठीक है. And basically आप अभी भी flood irrigate कर रहे हो but आप intelligently flood irrigate कर रहे हो rather than blanket flood irrigation. ठीक है. So what ends up happening is you water trees that need water, you don't water trees that don't need water irrespective of what the soil looks like. And and why does that happen? Because the the top soil essentially gets dried up but उसके नीचे पानी का moisture देखें होता जी the weather, like, it's baking hot, right? So, if the sun is actually, like, hitting the ground all the time, of course, the top soil will kind of become dry. But अब mango trees की जड़ें कितनी नीचे हैं, right? It doesn't matter whether the topsoil is dry or not. It matters what moisture levels are in the tree, right? Right. तो हम लोग इसी तरह crops के ऊपर भी ना actually plant moisture levels को देखते हैं. And how do you define those sensors

are on the plant? No no, we get all of this with satellite imagery. So it's all remotely done and actually How? How would you define, identify कि plants में moisture है through satellite imagery which is like

thousands of kilometers I would say. अच्छा. So, the thing is actually satellite imagery is quite amazing. तो जब हम एक satellite और हमारे पास we have multiple access to multiple 200 satellites, right? And we can command them so we can tell them where to go, at what time and things like that. But जब हम एक image लेते हैं from a satellite, normal image नहीं होती वह. अच्छा. Satellite image के अंदर आपको up to 21 different bands of light मिलती. ठीक है. Like near infrared, red

edge, things like that, right? अच्छा. So एक तो यह चीज़ है. And and and sorry मैं आपको वह कह रहा हूं. नहीं नहीं please. This very interesting. वह जो आपको satellite imagery में वह मिली है वह basically living material को फिर बता देती है कि वो कितना ज़्यादा?

देखिन जी उसकी different combinations आपको बहुत ज़्यादा चीज़ें बताती हैं. Think of it like a CT scan. ठीक है जी? तो what the human eye is not capable of seeing we can pick out from the information

contained within a satellite image. Interesting. And this is not just exclusive to, like, these big mango trees, but can also be, let's say, put to use for gundam का crop. Absolutely.

For example very Exactly. देखिए जी, for some of our clients we even have done counting of garlic plants, right? We've used drones for that because satellites aren't kind of like उनकी इतनी resolution अच्छी नहीं होती. लेकिन हम इस तरह की चीज़ें भी कर सकते हैं because हमारी company is essentially a deep tech company. हमने AI workflows बनाई मिली है, हमारे पास data scientist और machine learning engineers हैं जिनका काम ही है. तो we can do amazing things with satellite imagery. And have you guys been able to

at least map the the farming? Have been able to identify the farming map of Pakistan at the very least? कहां कहां पर हो? कहां पर रह? Like, एक one shop repository?

देखिए जी, that's the ambition over time. It's very easy to get a-uh, I think, a bad estimate of that because there's some freely available open source satellite imagery. ठीक है. But वह इतनी high resolution नहीं होती कि आप conclusively उसके साथ Right? भी चीज़ कर So for example मैं आपको इसकी एक example देता हूं. एक किसी ने LinkedIn के ऊपर post की थी एक कि जी देखिए मेरे इर्द गिर्द इतनी crop burning हो रही है क्योंकि सारी उनको satellite image It was actually corn. अच्छा. It wasn't crop burning. Interesting. तो you know the the the resolution, the detail that you get from a high resolution image is just vastly different from freely available imagery. तो हमारे ambition तो है at some stage to cover a large area in Pakistan, but actually we will go about it in a strategic

and logical way. Of course, we'll take step by step, if that makes sense. So right now what are you guys doing in terms of what's the product? जो आपने अपने लिए लिखा है तो I understand. And and if I were to extrapolate that to to more of a consumer facing product,

what would that look like? So, हमारे दो channels हैं. We have a direct to farmer channel और उसमें we have basically five products. They're all designed to address farmer के specific pain points. जिसमें एक यह water stress की report है, इसी तरह एक general health की report है, इसी तरह एक nitrogen level की report है जो farmer use कर सकता है to apply fertilizer more intelligently.

और आप पानी की cost की बात कर रहे थे, actually main cost farmer की fertilizer और pestorite chemicals है. And I mean so I understand the water वाली तो चले मैं अपनी o levels की science को थोड़ा सा use करके somewhat आपने infrared वगैरह बोला तो मैं पहुंच गया थोड़ा बहुता. जी. How do you get nitrogen levels from the soil? I mean, is that something जिसमें फिर आपको at least on some level तो आपको कोई ना कोई device तो डालनी पड़ेगी soil के अंदर to be able to get. देखिए जी again, it's not soil, it's plants.

So, the best device that you can put in a soil is a plant. Okay. Right? It can tell you a lot. So basically आप plants को देखकर ही identify कर रहे हैं कि यार इसमें deficient like, so you're identifying the deficiencies and then telling them कि यह क्या है? We can identify the ranges of nitrogen within a plant. So if it's excessive, we can tell. If it's okay, we can tell. If it's deficient, we can tell. Based on the look of the plant? Based on the light that bounces off the plant and, right? So, it's not because जब आप look की बात करते हैं ना, normally a person would think like an average RGB camera photo. हां हां. But जो हमें imagery मिलती है, as I mentioned उसमें इक्कीस bands of light होती हैं. Right. So, we can actually tell a lot. जैसे एक X-ray होता है, X-rays just basically different bands of light. Right. So, हम एक plant का X-ray या CT scan कर सकते हैं. So, we find out a lot. We can tell कि उसके nitrogen levels क्या हैं, उसका moisture level क्या है, उसकी overall general health क्या है और हम यह भी बता सकते हैं कि उस plant के stress का level क्या है. ठीक है. और वह important इस वजह से है कि actually वह correlate करता है कि इस plant में कोई बीमारी या कोई disease तो नहीं आई भी. और उसमें एक यह भी बहुत ज़बरदस्त चीज़ है कि हम actually proactively identify कर सकते हैं कि जी यहां पर risk of disease है. तो farmers को हम actually ahead of time बता सकते हैं कि इस area पर जाकर आप focus करें, right?

And and how often is this information shared with the farmer? I mean, do they essentially subscribe to a plan for a season जिसमें आप उनको actively monitor कर रहे हैं या is this more of a, okay, you know, like this is this is my farm. Just see what's going on and then give me a report and then move on to the next one. By the way, for most farmers we are free.

So they don't have to subscribe to anything. All they have to do is register and register करने के बाद वह हमारी app पर जाकर अपनी field की boundary mark कर देते हैं और उनको weekly reports generate होना शुरू हो जाती हैं. उनके farm pertaining to their farm? Yes, pertaining to exactly what they mark out. It's not just randomized

data. No-no-no. The entire industry or space. It's personalized

down to meters.

Just to confirm. जी. वहां पर एक बैठ है कामरान वज़ीराबाद में. जी. और उसके पास दो एकड़ के ऊपर उसके बाजी जो हैं वह गाड़ लिख को कर रहे हैं. जी. और वह कहता कि यार इन uncle ने यह बात बोलिए. मैं भी और इसीवा का download करता हूं और मैं यह करता हूं. उसको ठीक है, ठीक

Right. तो उसके

multiple level पर हम लोग यह information free पर provide करके दे रहे हैं. और इसके अलावा so I mean you are not making money out of this. तो पहला तो मेरा सवाल यह होगा कि then what's the catch? देखिए

जी what we do is उस farmer की information, their data is actually valuable. So we are creating a repository of data and we know that at some stage we will be able to monetize that farmer's data somehow. किसी तरीके से हम उसके data के अंदर से कोई an analysis या analytics करके किसी को आगे sell कर सकते मतलब एक तो मुझे जैसे basic चीज़ यह समझ आती है कि आपकी

the more farms you have, the more data you get and the more I mean better predictive analysis आप उसके ऊपर करते बिल्कुल. लेकिन यह कि उसको do you think कि उसी से फिर eventually आपका model बेहतर होगा तो आप monetization बेहतर कर सकते हैं? Do you think कि उस data को भी on some level you can monetize locally or internationally?

Definitely, I think उसमें एक big data का limit है. But if I think of a local model for example, अब देखें there might be things that the farmer needs once we have a critical mass of farmers on our platform, where we are play best place to actually provide them those things. ठीक है? जैसे for example अगर हम एक farmer को बता रहे हैं कि जी हमने आपका test किया, आपके test के results यह हैं. अब उसका अगला logical step होगा कि जी अब आप किसी से advice लें like a doctor और वह आपको prescription देगा

आपने मुझे analysis करके दे दिया. अब मैं क्या करता हूं कि मैं now I need to I mean what do I do with that analysis? There has to be some sort of an expert. बिल्कुल. जो आकर मुझे बता दें कि यार at least at the very least ये x y z चीज़ें आप करें तो आप उस पर कर सकते and then I can probably hire a or or like an आरती of sorts who can just sort of - Agronomist. Yeah. So-so, वह इस तरह का partner, would that be available? बिल्कुल. देखिए जी the Pakistan,

agri value chain ecosystem, whatever you want to call it, इसमें there's a number of a number of multinational companies, there's a number of new startups popping up, there's a number of people who have been doing advisory, for a long time. So, what we don't want to do is reinvent the wheel. And I think मेरा एक perspective भी है, in general, macro perspective on पाकिस्तानी farming का landscape जो है which we can perhaps cover a little bit later. But we are a very open collaborative organization. We like partnerships. Right. तो हमारे एक partner हैं for example vital agrinutrients. ठीक है. वह specialty fertilizer बनाते हैं जो पाकिस्तानी soils के लिए बहुत अच्छी है. It's low pH, it has sulfur in it जिससे actually आपकी land की overtime kind of condition बेहतर होती है. Right. तो generally हम क्या करते हैं अगर हमें पता होता है कि उनकी एक team एक area के अंदर है, हम farmer को अपना test और diagnostic दे देते हैं and we ask them to contact these guys ताकि वो उनको एक proper based on our test and diagnostic एक kind of detailed plan देते हैं. Right. Over time we might get into this, but at this point in time we are a test and diagnostic,

digital first company. Right. And again, just to confirm, the testing and diagnostics is like a weekly thing can happen. Yes, absolutely. So evolving situation के बारे में, लोग आपसे information भेज And

then there is another aspect to the product as well, I believe. Absolutely. So our other channel is the B2B channel. जहां पर हम basically agri based enterprises या agri businesses को serve करते हैं. उसमें multiple चीज़ें आती हैं. For example, अगर आप सबसे basic वाले angle को देखें तो food processors, people who take crops like sugarcane or beet or rice, you know, multiple other staples, उनको process करके वह package करते हैं, export करते हैं या process करके चीनी बना देते हैं या process करके उससे, you know, धागा बना देते हैं, things like that. तो उनको हम लोग on demand analytics देते हैं, उनके लिए bespoke projects भी करते हैं. आपने earlier garlic की बात की थी. Corporate farms is another big segment for us. Right. तो corporate farms में गौरवे पाकिस्तान are doing amazing stuff. अच्छा. जी, उन्होंने जीवन garlic के you know, काफी बड़ी plantation की हुई है. They have a very forward looking and kind of amazing vision about agriculture in Pakistan. Interesting. जीवन garlic, I heard this is a new variant that

Pakistan agriculture p a r c created. Correct. And its very exclusive to Pakistan and उसका जो seed है वो black में बिक रहा है. नहीं जी black में तो नहीं बिक रहा है मगर यह है कि actually it

जिसकी एक यह kind of philosophy है कि यह हम बहुत large scale पर export कर सकते हैं. ठीक है. Specially because हमारे साथ kind of China इस तरह की countries हैं जहां पर इसकी बहुत high consumption होती. तो अभी park ने जब यह seed create की थी तो उनके पास बहुत कम थी. तो अब जीवन garlic जो लग रहा है वह actually for seed purposes लग रहा है. And वह बहुत महंगा बिक रहा है इस वजह से because we don't have enough of it. So it's just like एक wave IV है जिसके बाद जब वो critical

mass कर लेगी तो फिर वो एक sustainable economy है. Exactly exactly yes see. Makes sense. So ठीक हो गया so आप कह रहे हैं कि for example मैं एक wheat की मिलूं और मेरे पास wheat आएगी तो wheat is generally wheat का stable रहता है और उसका वह नहीं होता मैं sugar कर लेता क्योंकि sugar को ज़्यादा मसला है क्योंकि वह ज़्यादा से अगर रुक जाए तो you know dry out होना शुरू रहता है. What

value does for example your product bring to them? Sure. तो सबसे पहले तो जी we can do a very large scale scan. Let's say पचास हज़ार एकड़ या एक लाख एकड़. उसके ऊपर हम 90 plus precision से बता सकते हैं कि कहाँ कहाँ क्या क्या crop लगा हुआ है. अच्छा. Sugarcane कहाँ लगी हुई है, wheat कहाँ लगी हुई है, corn कहाँ लगी हुई है, बरसीम कहाँ लगी हुई है, grasses कहाँ लगे हुए हैं, chilies कहां लगी हुई है? सारा automated तरीके से map कर देगा कि यार इधर इधर यही हो रहा है. बिल्कुल हमने basically machine learning और deep learning models बनाए हुए हैं जिनमें हम satellite imagery feed करते हैं और उसके end पर हमें वह एक classified image देता है जिसमें

जो वो सारी classes होती हैं वो different types of crops होती हैं. So for example अगर मिल के जो essentially let's assume agents हैं जिन्होंने जाना है और जाकर farmer को reach out करना है, they just run one scan and they know कि यार इस season में मुझे इस इस इसी इसी के पास जाना है and I am good to go. They don't have to drive around everywhere and. देखिए

mills anyway do this. They do manual scans. Right. Because even to find कि हमारे catchment area में या हमारे gate area में कितनी sugarcane लगी है is a useful statistic for them because they can plan their operations on that. Right. Manual में थोड़ा यह issue होता है कि actually people don't really do it properly, right? Like वह registers के ऊपर लिखा जा रहा है. There is a lot of human intervention exactly. Exactly, yeah. There is hundreds of people who have to go out in the field to do this and गर्मी में ख्वारी गाला काम and things like that. So human nature kind of gets the better of most people. Right. इस चीज़ को हम एक remote तरीके से बहुत easily we can just give you that information digitally. With a much much smaller cost? Much smaller cost than a 100 people on the ground, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah yeah, no comparison. Interesting. तो यह और यह एक सिर्फ़ पहला step है. Right? So, what we can also now do is we can classify different varieties of sugarcane. Right. So we can tell you which variety is growing where. Why is that important for the mill? Because in variety के recovery rates different होते हैं. अच्छा, ठीक है. So how much sugar they make from गन्ना is a factor of what variety they're growing. So, we can tell them that. We can also tell them कि यह sugarcane कब plant हुई थी? यानी यह September में काश हुई थी, February में काश हुई थी या यह return crop है. Okay, what's the return crop? So, when you plant sugarcane, आप उसकी seeds भी थोड़ा सा कम होगा and then थोड़ा सा Again वो, वो variety पर depend करता है. कई ऐसी varieties भी थीं जो actually आपको second year even better kind of yield देती हैं. But point being कि actually हम काफी detail में जा सकते हैं for, for mills because we use high resolution imagery. Analytics ability is basically our bread and butter, so we invest a lot in that. Right. We hire the best, brightest minds who are actually very passionate about agriculture. So, उनके लिए यह it's not work, it's passion. Right?

तो Interesting. Recently you announced a funding round. जी. थोड़े सा उसको detail बताएंगे. हां जी, we recently

closed our first ever funding round. It was $1,300,000 led by Indus Valley Capital and आतिफ अवन and other kind of notable investors like शेरियार हेदरी and देव साई Ventures. And in general we were very lucky. We got to pick our investors. तो हमने ऐसे लोगों को select किया है जैसे for example LMKR. They are an amazing success story in tech in Pakistan and they have very deep knowledge both on the tech side but also on the agri tech side. Right. So with them on board, we get to draw on that role. Institutional knowledge जो आपको मिल रही है growth के लिए और सारा कोई. Exactly.

और इसके अलावा मुझे यह बताइएगा कि what, I mean, with the $1,300,000, what's the... Because you are essentially a digital fast, you know, sit in your head office, use these satellites, control them and and and get the stuff done. Where's the where's the growth money going in? So basically, there's,

essentially two things that we do with that. एक तो we buy data. So satellite imagery and things like that and we focus and concentrate on really really high value, the best available in the world. Right? Like for example 0.3 or 0.5 meter per pixel data. उससे बेहतर कोई satellite अभी है ही नहीं. पूरी दिन के लिए. Secondly, we are hiring really really top quality. This is very niche what we do. तो for example, even within artificial intelligence एक deep learning की field है, एक computer vision की field है, एक machine learning की field है. हम उन fields के अंदर भी actually बहुत specific चीज़ें कह रहे हैं. So, the types of people we are looking for, they are rare. And they are expensive. And they are expensive. Correct. So, makes sense. And you are hiring right now? Yes.

We're actively hiring, across tech, across product and across sales. And your head office is based in Karachi, you have an office in Islamabad as well. जी. We're at The Hive in Islamabad, and we're at Colabs in Lahore as well. अच्छा, so you're in all three cities. Very cool. So I am going to move the conversation now away from, you know, stuff pertaining to farm that and I am going to just sort of tickle your brain with some agriculture knowledge. अच्छा पहले तो मुझे यह बताएं कि with all of the data that you guys are gathering, मैं जब Pakistan के farming के I don't even know where to start. But let's just start with this. Some of the conversations that I have had on the podcast regarding farming were एक साहब ने मुझे आकर बताया कि जी Pakistan में sugar cane उगाना जो है वह actually it's not a very lucrative. वह actually sugar बनाना is not a lucrative thing. It's, it's something जो कि government price control कर कुर्के. It's actually much cheaper to just import it and it's better to actually grow or it's a very water intensive crop as well. It is. जो कि Pakistan में अगर हम actually पानी को उसकी real demand supply के ऊपर price करना शुरू कर दें तो the economics of sugarcane will absolutely make no sense. It's a dirt cheap raw material. आप उसे करो आप value add करके export करो. You know why do you need to focus on the lowest bottom of the food chain item. बिल्कुल. And then alternatively हमने देखा कि olive की success story and वह वाली जो कि which are much more native to our environment and so वहां पर I think Potoha Region वगैरह में olive की plantations वगैरह बिल्कुल है. होना शुरू हुई हैं. पिछले आठ दस साल में उसी के साथ साथ मैंने यह भी तो so what I have understood from all of this conversation is that a lot of our farmers don't really I mean वह इतना truck की बत्ती के पीछे चले में कि यार जो जिस तरह से जो सुना सुनाया तो चलो जो सारे के सारे उसके पीछे लग गए. Rather than really optimizing our every aspect of it right? हमें पता है कि हमारा यह land है, हमारा इतना पानी available है, हमारा इतना यह हमारे पास variables हैं that that are at play and उसकी economics क्या है? अच्छा अब मुझे एक चीज़ जो बड़ी मज़े की समझ आई वही आई. पहला इसलिए मैं आपसे mapping का सवाल पुछा कि पहली चीज़ तो मुझे यह समझ आई कि अगर मैं Pakistan के agriculture के ecosystem को या rather पाकिस्तानी food security के ecosystem को समझना चाहूं तो मेरा पहला question mark दिया गया give me the data. Sure. Give me the data to be help me begin to understand where the problems are and so that I can you know, turn the right knobs. And the fact is कि more often than not I wouldn't have the right data. पानी का for example. पानी का lot of times मैं देख रहा था कि, you know, we talk about water scarcity and and Pakistan being a water stress nation. And I also saw that Pakistan has one of the highest per capita consumption of water in the world. Pakistan has almost, so हम कहते हैं जिसी पानी का मस्ता जब भी आते हैं लोग कहते गाड़ियां धोना बंद कर दो. 8% of your entire water is actually going into domestic consumption. 12% is going into industrial consumption. हम कहते कि यार यह नस्ले पानी चोरी करके ले गया. तो यह हमारी जो है ना वह cement वाले के दिन आप पानी ज़ाया कर रहे हैं. 80% is going into agriculture. Exactly. With one of the lowest yield in the world. It just blows your mind. Absolutely. It's inefficiency. It's inefficiency. It's not a metric of you know, like, getting more water, getting dams in more water and praying for more rain. It's all it's all a matter of just using that water for the right thing and you'll probably have excess water available. Exactly.

देखिए, I'm not sure about excess water, but I can tell you one thing for certain. We can make the use of water a lot more efficient and actually a farmer doesn't really need to invest a lot of money in doing that. For example, drip irrigation is the perfect solution for that. However, it's expensive. Why is it expensive? Infrastructure. हां जी, infrastructure pipes लगाने हैं आपने, एक motor लगानी होती है, pump लगाना होता है, things like that. You have to maintain it as well. You have to keep the nozzles clean and open and things. You know, कई areas में नहीं लगता, कई areas में freeze हो जाता है, things like that, right? Right. तो उसका जो हमने एक, I guess, more low tech solution निकाला है using deep tech is कि हम आपको plant moisture levels का बता देते हैं. तो अगर फर्ज़ करें आपके पास पांच एकड़ है, large food producers and things like that and everyone is seeing the value in it. Right. Because essentially you don't have to do something very difficult to be able to apply that and action it in the field. Right. तो I think water efficiency के multiple angles हैं. I think our canal system is amazing but it's old and there's a lot of seepage. I was incidentally talking yesterday to the folks from valley irrigation जो हमारे center pivot irrigation के pioneers हैं Pakistan में. What's that? It's basically a mechanism where a big arm goes around the field in a circle. It's pivoted in the middle और वह sprinklers के through पानी देता है. Oh, interesting. वह हो रहा है Pakistan में. हां जी. Is this a new company? Local companies भी car रही हैं. Is this a new company or is this like a? I think they have been in operation in Pakistan for at least fifteen years or more. अच्छा. जी. But now people like Haji Sons and, you know, Jaffar Brothers, even they are producing this. And this is all locally produced? Yes, I think so. Interesting. However, the the very interesting conversation with the value irrigation guys was they have this salt, it's a polymer और उसको जब आप canal में डालते हो, तो वह actually जहां से सीपे जो हो रही होती है, the it पीस. हट जाती वहां जाती वहां जाकर वह sludge वन जाती है. Like, it turns into almost this पट्टी. Oh wow. And they're kind of, they've, disc I don't know whether it's their discovery, but they've got an amazing product for the पाकिस्तानी market just is another solution which could help a lot. Right. क्योंकि canal की सीपेच को रोकना is actually maintenance, right? हां हां. और अगर आपने canal system को maintain करना है, why not use this product? It's very cheap, it can be used at scale. So, do you know, there are there are things in the ecosystem that are happening. Yeah. Pakistan का maybe agriculture में ecosystem में एक यह थोड़ा सा issue है कि हम लोग बहुत fragmented हैं. And I have come across a lot of people who are trying to do everything. Mhmm. They want to be the B2B marketplace. They want to be the analytics provider. They want to be the provider of inputs. They want to be the advisory council for farmers. They want to, you know, manufacture sensors.

Feel like I know the ones you're talking about. And

honestly, like, I think everyone is doing that right now and it Because I mean people get excited about the entire thing कि यार इतनी ज़्यादा problems to solve है but I feel like उसका alternate यह है कि you are not really solving anything, you just solving everything. लेकिन you will not achieve anything if you aim to boil the ocean or try to reinvent the wheel. हमारा यह approach है इसके अंदर, हम अपने area के अंदर एक बहुत focus तरीके से not only at a Pakistan level but like our test and diagnostic we are really aiming at it being the best in the world. Right. And we want to do that and जहां पर already लोग काम करें we want to partner with them to make sure that actually

as an ecosystem the farmer is getting the benefit. Right. Now if we start to try and do everything ourselves, we will simply not be able to benefit the farmers. I mean that makes sense but then when you, when you are talking about doing everything that, that also means you are talking about कि भाई मैं चौहेना जाकर cold storage में भी जा रहा हूं, warehousing में भी जा रहा हूं, packaging में भी जा रहा हूं. Essentially मैं वह क्या हूं, वह डोल है. The ones who sell bananas और food coil. सुना है वह डोल वन जाता हूं और मैं पूरी दुनिया से sourcing करके पूरी दुनिया में भेज रहा But, and and I get that. But within your particular framework, do you think and and this is just an open question but do you think there is a possibility that you're able to solve? Because I अभी जो आपने problem solve की है on a micro level but interesting मुझे लगा कि आपका यह process था where I feel like if if if someone has to solve a problem for themselves and then make their a product that's the best product available in the market. Correct. क्योंकि

वो जितना दिल लगा के आप अपनी चीज़ को solve करते हैं ना उसमें बहुत सारी extra फ़ालतू के पैसे लगाकर आप बहुत सारी innovation में चले जाते हैं जो कि आप शायद client के लिए ना जाए. बिल्कुल सही बात कर रहे आप मुज़मिल देखें अब हम mills और sugar mills particularly की बात क्यों कह रहे थे? हम लोग sugarcane खुद भी उगते हैं और हम पिछले पंद्रह सालों से sugarcane supply भी खा रहे हैं mills को. Right. So we understand that segment really really well. So we feel that actually there's a huge amount of base knowledge that we have as farmers of sugarcane. Right. And we can apply that to make sure कि जो हम products develop कर रहे हैं वह farmer के लिए भी काम करते हैं, mill के लिए भी काम करते हैं. And I, we really believe कि इस arena के अंदर एक virtuous circle भी है. हम अगर farmer की yield बढ़ा सकते हैं तो mill का भी फ़ायदा है, farmer का भी फ़ायदा. अगर हम farmer की yields भी बढ़ा सकते हैं और उनकी recovery भी बढ़ा सकते हैं, वह mill का भी फ़ायदा है, farmer का भी फ़ायदा. Back to your earlier point, देखिए it's very debatable whether sugarcane is native to Pakistan as the right crop to grow and things like that. However, I do want to say one thing. Pakistan is one of the top 10 producers of sugarcane in the world. So, something is right. Right. Okay? I think the bit that is wrong is हमारी yields bottom 50 में. Right. Right? That's what? See, yes. So हमारे और यह multiple crops के साथ हमारे problems हैं. हम लोग wheat के भी top five में आते हैं. हम लोग rice के क्या क्या भी top क्या क्या acreage? No, in terms of tons produced, right? So if you look at amount of crop produced in tonnage, sugarcane, wheat, rice,

mangoes, dates, oranges, there's a number of crops where we are in the top 10 in the world. ठीक है. अगर आप इन सारे crops की yield पर acre देखें तो हम bottom 50 के करीब हैं. नहीं, so that's what I am saying ना कि फिर तो आप यानी कि you will essentially large weights of land के ऊपर आप produce कर रहे हैं और आप उसमें अपने top 10 में तो पहुंच रहे हैं but अगर आप उसकी yield बढ़ा दें तो शायद दो चीज़ें हो सकती हैं. या तो आप crazy numbers पर produce करना शुरू कर देंगे या आप कहेंगे कि यार मुझे एक लाख एकड़ रुपए को उगाने की ज़रूरत नहीं बीस हज़ार पचास हज़ार एकड़ रुपए को अगर मैं वो काम कर सकता हूँ and I can move on to the next one next round. देखिए जी

if if I look at this from the global context right तकरीबन twenty fifty तक एक दस billion के आसपास world की population आएगी. ठीक है. In order to feed everyone हमें तकरीबन 60 to 100% more food चाहिए. Right, double करना है. Exactly. अगर हमने हर किसी को खाना देना है तो double करना है. अगर जो लोग अभी भूखे हैं उनको भूखा ही रखना है तो 60%. Right. यह करने के लिए we need additional land mass eight times the size of Pakistan to produce that 60 to 100% extra food. Ok. So, is a global problem. Food production is inefficient everywhere. It's just that these problems are actually massively accentuated in Pakistan. हमारे climatic मसले भी हैं, हमारे water scarcity के मसले भी हैं, हमारे farming practices के मसले भी हैं, lack of data का मसला भी है. एक बहुत vast और fragmented ecosystem का मसला भी है, in my opinion, in my humble opinion. Mhmm. तो what we are hoping to do is actually use data and tech to

kind of help the ecosystem make better decisions so that we can actually do something about this. Yeah, नहीं मैं इसलिए so that's why I was basically when I look at the future what I'm trying to understand is देखिए एक तो आपने वह satellite का data लिया और आपने individual micro level की और बता दिया तुम्हारे case में यही यह missile हो सकते हैं. बिल्कुल. मैं कहूंगा कि यार धंधा चल रहा है service चल रही है उसके ऊपर monthly मेरा revenue generate हो रहा है and I am good. Then as a data scientist or as a data first company I am gonna actively start looking for कि यार और क्या data available है जिसको मैं plug करता रहा और मैं insights को multiply करता रहा हूं. बिल्कुल ऐसे ही right? जी. So that basically means कि यार all I really need to do is first of all मैं map करूं कि यार मेरे पास मेरे सारा map ना करूं ideally मैं सारा map कर लूं but वह नहीं भी हुआ हुआ और उसका historical data रहा है कि यार जब पानी इतना होता है तो उससे यह impact आता है पानी इतना होता फिर मेरे पास weather data है कि यार weather में जब यह होता है तो उससे यह impact पड़ता है and so it's not just necessarily just exclusive to my crop You become this companion app that just goes a whole long way, of of helping the farmer ten years from now essentially if you have all of that data. And once you have all of that data, you plug that data with the financial markets and really begin to understand कि यार what's काफी दफा ऐसे होते हैं आप एक काम कर रहे हैं किसी भी चीज़ के अंदर होता है कि आपको you have this एक एक facade of profitability काफी दफा आपको लगती है ना because आपके दिमाग में property है ठीक है file में खरीदते रहे बेचते रहे बीस हज़ार बादों को लगता है यार भाई में तो बड़ा पैसा बना लिया. जब आप actually numbers पर जाते तो आपको पता लगता अभी मैं पिछले दिनों देख रहा था someone put up put it up on twitter 2015 to twenty twenty two और 18 to twenty twenty two. उन्होंने क्या किया कि '17 to 2022. उन्होंने क्या किया कि उन्होंने dollar में उठाया और उन्होंने gold उठाया और उन्होंने KSE 100 उठाई. अच्छा आपसे मैं पूछूं मैं किसी से भी पुछ रहा हूं. वो कहेगा यार पागल है stock से क्यों डाल रहा है? Dollar और gold सबसे बेहतर return देंगे. Right? उसने actually data points को pluck किया और आपको पता है पिछले चार साल में when dollar has devalued like crazy and gold has gone up and everything. KSC one hundred has given the best returns.

Interesting.

Right and and and much higher than inflation. Dollar actually has given lower than inflation returns. So you're not, you don't really make any money. What you do is कि आपके दिमाग में पैसा हो गया लेकिन actually buying power reduce हुई overall. बिल्कुल ठीक. So वो जो चीज़ है वो do you think you can potentially be able to help farmers make those decisions of which crop I need to buy, I need to put in because when I look at a problem to solve for the industry on a higher scale with data, I think Pakistan में it's not just a matter of के जो farming farming है वह है. I think जो overall ecosystem है that needs to be better managed and वह हमारा I can't expect my policymaker to do it because my policymaker a is not well equipped to do that, b does not have the right data. And I think you're the right layer

जिसके through हर चीज़ में pass होना है. उसने policy में भी pass होना है और उसमें उसमें भी होना देखिए आप 100% सही बोल रहे हैं. We see ourselves as the base layer of data creation. जिसके ऊपर multiple layers भी आऐंगे जो हम खुद डालेंगे और multiple essay we would like the rest of the ecosystem to use that where they can add multiple layers of value add on top. Right. Right? And as time goes, you are exactly right कि हमारे पास multiple kind of like levels के ऊपर, multiple features के साथ, multiple facets के साथ data gather हो रहा होगा. तो things will emerge out of that as well. For now, we really want to focus on efficiency and productivity. Because we see that as an area जहां पर हम जाकर immediately dial turn कर सकते हैं, right? You know, if we can make sugarcane production more or sugarcane kind of growing more productive and we can like increase yields or increase recoveries. That's something I think we are really well placed to do. तो absolutely in the future all this will come and to be honest, आपने scanning की बात की थी और Pakistan की बात की थी. एक हमारा बहुत बड़ा में, agriculture में. Our agriculture is geographically concentrated. Oranges का एक kind of district है सरगोधा, जहां पर mostly और जगहों पर भी उगते हैं मगर हमारी critical mass oranges की सरगोधा में. Pakistan is a top five producer I think of dates in the world. All of those are in district खैरपुर. अच्छा. हम chilis उगते हैं जो उमर कोठ में उगती हैं सारी कुंजरी में. So you can really focus your energies on Exactly. हां. इसी तरह you know rice is a belt. Rice belt आपने सुना होगा. तो actually अगर हम इसको थोड़ा strategically और geographically segment करके जाएं, we can cover a lot of staple crops, lot of important crops to Pakistan without having to scan all of Pakistan, right? And actually, so that is the plan. That is how we're going to go about it. And that is, आप इसको एक kind of digital land grab या इस तरह से associate कर सकते हैं but like rather than just going all out we want to go strategically.

Strategically, I understand that. And and and it's that's what's getting me excited as well because the possibilities are endless, right? And you can essentially go in all directions. I mean, what I'm thinking is कि यार, in the in the ultimate, once you're a unicorn, and I do believe this unicorn just waiting to happen, you can really begin to predict because you have the satellite data of the entire world. You can really say, k, r, what is Thailand doing in terms of XYZ production and what they've just done is going to, ये होता है analysts होते हैं बैठे आपके होते पास वो real time first hand data आ रहा होगा कि यार यहां पर crop इस बार farmer ने कुछ और game खेली है जिसकी वजह से एक vacuum create होने वाला है तो मैं अपने अच्छा नया crop लगने लगा है इस इस और इस जगह में which is conducive to the crop that's not growing in Thailand anymore. देखिए हम लोग investors

को एक kind of example देते थे इसका. We want to be a Bloomberg for agriculture. ठीक है ना जी? तो actually that is what you are describing here. Yeah. So actually that's the, that's the goal. I, I also must admit कि देखें अभी recent जो हमारे market conditions हैं या economic downturn की kind of इमकानात हैं या हो चुके हैं, उसकी वजह से हमने अपने आप को थोड़ा सा एक kind of pause करके. हाँ. We have had to, you know, revisit our plans and take stock. Right. And it's been very fortunate that actually our funding came at the time that it did. We are still very well capitalized. There's also because of sort of some layoffs and things like that, in the market there's good talent available more than it was six months ago. Right. तो हमारा plan है to actually double down on important segments first. Mhmm. So that हमारी जो funding मिली है, we don't burn through it very very quickly. Right. And actually we preserve it for longer. And that basically, actually is also an advantage because we become kind of experts in a particular area. If अगर हम उसी चीज़ को replicate कर सकते हैं in Pakistan across other crops for example, that is a growth area for us और फिर उसी चीज़ को हम different geographies maybe replicate कर सकते हैं. We were actually being, in fact we are being currently incubated by Microsoft. अच्छा. In the मीना region, they have a accelerator called Growth X. We are the only company from Pakistan in that accelerator and why we apply it is actually they set you a real commercial challenge in the So it's not just to attend, you know, कि आप ING बैठें, आप, you know, presentations दे दें और like छह छह सात बाद, छह सात महीने के बाद आपको you know, हम investors से मिला देंगे. So, we really like the fact कि उन्होंने एक business challenge set किया वादा. जिसमें Koch Holdings, which is a Turkish conglomerate, 6% of Turkey's GDP is their contribution. So they are huge. They own Turk tractor which is Turkish largest tractor manufacturer. I think वह अल्गाज़ी tractors के भी उनकी कोई kind of तो JV या shareholding उनका challenge था कि आप यह चीज़ अगर हमारे से बेहतर कर सकते हैं then we are interested. So they have an app with about a million farmers that does plant and analytics. So they gave us that challenge. And अलहम्मद अल्लाह we had two successful pilots with him. Very cool. So, they have actually asked us to quote for, you know, providing them services in Turkey. Oh, very cool. तो, you know, if we can do stuff really well in Pakistan, actually it starts to apply elsewhere. Yeah. Pakistan is a large enough agricultural, kind of economy. Pakistan is a large enough agricultural producer. यहां पर जो crops produce हो रहे हैं वह हमारे region में और जगहों पर भी हो रहे हैं. Sugarcane Indonesia में भी होती है, Thailand में भी होती है, cotton, turkey में भी होती Egypt में भी होती है. तो do you know यह चीज़ें

outside of Pakistan भी spread How's the feedback from the actual mill and the farmer and and and I know that it's it must be excruciating Pakistan में किसी को भी जाकर demand create करना बड़ा मुश्किल होता कि यार listen this is gonna help you. But also I feel like because you have your own sort of success story, it's comparatively much easier to really just begin to see कि यार देखो भाई मैंने मेरा माल अच्छा बिक रहा ना तो it's only a matter of enough seasons passing where the person is like कि यार अच्छा वह क्या game खेल रहा है? तो I'm going start going देखिए, for that

on that point, I we would welcome others in this, in Pakistan. And the reason for that is कि whether it's the farmer or whether it's a business to business kind of, you know, mill or somebody in the agri value chain, we want our consumers to be as aware as possible of what is out there. तो अगर मैं इसको एक marketing funnel के point of view से देखूं, उसमें सबसे unaware बंदा है जिसको problem की awareness ही नहीं है. Right. They are problem unaware. Right. उसके बाद आता है problem aware. उनको problem का पता है लेकिन उनको solutions का नहीं पता. Right. फिर आते हैं solution aware. जिनको problem की भी awareness है, उनको यह भी पता है कि actually solutions भी हैं out there. और finally आते हैं product aware. जिनको यह भी पता है कि ok यह solution क्या है? और उनको यह भी पता है product कौन सा? तो हम चाहते हैं कि हम Pakistan में farmers को और B2B enterprises को product aware करें. ठीक है. उसके लिए हम खुद नहीं कर सकते. We need other people to enter the, you know, ecosystem. It's a vast ecosystem. Even a 100 startups like that us would probably not be able to put a dent in it immediately. Right. You know? तो we want others in the market. What's the potential opportunity? अगर मैं purely numbers के लिए कहूँ. देखिए जी, we believe we can be a unicorn. That's why we are doing this. हम तीनों co founders जो हैं हमने अपने careers को जला के मैं आपसे मज़ाक नहीं कह रहा है एक actually मुझे funny दी थीं. तो मैं अभी यही conversation करके आई हूं. अपने existing काम के साथ मैं boards जलाकर आ गया हूं. तो अब मैं land कर रहा हूं and you'll have to look after me and तो you know we are, we have like a huge belief in this actually being very positive in Pakistan. इसका मैं आपको एक kind of this is something I like to quote कि, you know, as a startup and particularly as a startup founder, I'm always looking for what is our unfair advantage in the market. Mhmm. And I believe Pakistan's unfair advantage is agriculture. अच्छा. So, you know, I think the opportunity is absolutely worth it. Why do you say so? देखिन जी हम लोग top 10 हैं Mhmm. In so many things. If we are able to actually improve our practices with the help of the ecosystem, if we are, if we can actually improve our efficiency particularly, improve our productivity, we can become regional and global leaders in agriculture. अगर हम लोग bottom 50 से actually twentieth तक आ जाएं, तो हम लोग probably दो तीन places charge जाएंगे even further in the global rankings in agriculture. We have the ability to export all our food. We actually have the means हमें नेमित मिली हुई है कि हम दुनिया के लोगों को खाना खिला सकते हैं. यार यह बड़ी सुनने में आती है यह बात actually true है. यह ऐसे बस drama है कि यार हमारे पास बड़ा देखिए पहुंचा आप motivate की बात कर रहे थे earlier, right? I would encourage you कि आप ज़रा motivate पर सिंध वाली side पर जाएं. अच्छा. You know, you will see actually कि इतना agriculture है Pakistan में and our potential to actually be world leaders in it is basically is down to us. There's no external forces stopping us, right? So, यह Pakistan के cricket team के बारे में भी quotes, I think, Steve Walker था या you know Ricky Paunting, somebody like that. He said only people who can beat Pakistan is Pakistan.

यह agriculture में भी यही scene है. The only people who can hold us back is us. And it's also very important. It's not just Pakistan के लिए, it's also very globally. I was looking at yesterday I was looking at a report of Bill Gates really just, you know, binging on farmland all over the world and and and उसके ऊपर उन्हें conspiracy theory बनाई हुई थी but generally I, when I look at Bill Gates, don't see him as this evil, you know, overlord but I actually see him as beginning to identify the problem twenty years in advance. Yeah. And I feel like he, what he's identified is कि यार दुनिया में food security is going to be the number one crisis over the next few decades. And obviously he ties that down to climate change and you will see that in Bill and Melinda reports as well. और उसमें आपको यह realization होती है कि with climate change, a lot of inputs are gonna get expensive. You know, input of water, input of energy, input of, I would say, labor as well in some cases. And when you realize that and you realize that the cost of food is going to exponentially rise globally, then you realize कि यार यह तो it's not just हमारे दिमाग में तो याद है ना कि यार हम या तो कोई silicon chip produce करें. यह क्या गंदों मंगाएं? लेकिन

गंदम is gonna be very real twenty years from now, you know. बिल्कुल and to be honest even today it is. अब देखेंगे जो kind of war की वजह से Ukraine के अंदर crisis वगैरह आया हुआ है, this this is gonna send shock waves to you know staple food prices. Yeah. तो absolutely देखिए हमने अगर दस billion लोगों को feed करना है और हम we want actually people not to starve, food has to be produced better and I think Pakistan is super well placed कि हम इस चीज़ में एक leading role लें, यह हमारे पास capability है. I think इसमें काफी चीज़ें हैं जो missing हैं and it will take some time

but we as an organization are entirely focused on that particular agenda. You know, we want to see Pakistan become regional or global leaders in agriculture. Makes sense. मोहम्मद, am going to wrap this up very very soon but couple of, one last question before I move on to my show ending question that I ask everyone. पहले तो मुझे यह बताइएगा कि you know you've been around here farming में पहले भी आप थे. जी. ज़ाहिर अब जब आप ecosystem में you've you've sort of आपने वह dive मारी है. वैसे तो आप दस दिन ही हुए हैं but I am sure virtually आपने यहां होगा and co founder से conversations हुई नहीं होंगी. What what's your take on other people? Are there other players? Like you said, you know, there is a need for a 100 different startups and I am actually hearing about startups here and there. You know, really beginning to start to have that chatter about agriculture and personally speaking, I mean, I for the longest time I am a totally know इस्लाम आदि boy जिसने कभी ज़िंदगी में सोचा ही नहीं कि खाना कहां से आ रहा है. You know everything else is just a वह. But last two to three years this has started to become a very real conversation कि यार यह क्या हो रहा है और इसको किस्ताना fix किया जाता और जब पढ़ा लिखा और पैसे वाला जब इस चीज़ में घुसता है तो फिर आपको automatically आपको पता कि institutional funding भी आती है और सारा कुछ आता है. How do you first of all see the ecosystem now beyond Farmedar?

जी, देखिए there is multiple people in the ecosystem already and is growing and actually there is new and innovative companies joining the ecosystem all the time. एक तो हमारा एक MNC corporate level पर या enterprise level पर ecosystem existing है जिसमें आप chem, FMCG इन सारी companies को count कर सकते हैं. फिर हमारे पास kind of एक you know, not institutional but I would say large business level के ऊपर भी kind of agri के अंदर है and इसमें आप count कर सकते हैं people like जाफर brothers, you know, हाजी sons, you know corporates like gourmet getting into agriculture which I think is a massively positive thing for Pakistan. I am so bullish about that and very pleased about that. तो एक वह चीज़ भी हो रही है agriculture के अंदर. इसके साथ साथ startup space में भी लोग आना शुरू हो रहे हैं. So, for example, you know, our friends at Grotech, प्सावी, Crop2X and others. You know, they are also coming to this place. इनके साथ हमारी regular, maybe not regular but every now and then बातें भी होती हैं and I always say to them what I'd like to repeat now which is कि देखिए please don't try to do everything. Don't boil the ocean. अपना आप एक strength pick करें. उस चीज़ को ज़रा आप actually depth के अंदर prove out करें यहां पर. You know, if you try and do everything at the same time, it's too vast an area for you to actually be successful. You need a lot of resources, you need a lot of partnerships and things like that. So what I would love to see in Pakistan is actually some collaboration and actually people becoming more focused in their areas of expertise and then partnering with other existing organizations that are institutional, that are actually very willing to help. हमने LMKR and we are so lucky to have them, उनको as as investors हम इस वजह से लेकर आए हैं because उनके पास यह capability है. They can help a small पिद्दी सी startup like us with their knowledge, with their contacts, with their kind of institutional reach. So I think more of that needs to happen in the ecosystem. And finally I would say कि देखिए जब मैं अब मैं tech के लोग ढूंढ रहा हूं, right? The amazing thing is everyone I speak to is somehow connected to agriculture in Pakistan. या somebody's grandfather used to do it, या somebody grew up in an area जहां पर agriculture was big, या somebody already has kind of some connections. So, I would really encourage young people to start thinking about agriculture and tech in Pakistan as like a really emergent and potentially very explosive area. Right. ठीक है? Like इसमें specially on the AI side, there are some amazing applications. So, young bright minds have to focus on this now so that we can kind of reap the rewards of that in the coming years and Inshallah we are planning to do that. Like, you know, we give a lot of importance to the people we hire on the tech side. You know, they're basically the engine of our organization. And, inshallah, I hope that others will do that as well, and we'll manage to inspire the younger generation to kind of get involved in agriculture. Makes sense.

Mohammed, we're at the one hour thirteen minute mark. And I'm gonna wrap this up. This was incredibly insightful. मेरी मेरी जो weight था ना जो, agriculture को समझने का, वह आज पूरा हुआ है. Thank you so much. Oh, you're so kind. I'm gonna ask you one last question that I generally ask everyone. And I want you to focus on your particular area of expertise इस case में. You were in Pakistan, you know, born and bred, lived there for most part. And then eventually, you left for The UK for twenty two years. It's a long time. But then you chose to come back to Pakistan and you're obviously उस पर बंदा with all of the नाज़ुक मोर्ज and everything that the country is going through, you think कोई ना कोई आपको एक नज़र आ रहा है future. How do you see Pakistan twenty eight years from now? अगर मैं आपसे particularly पूछूं in the let's say agriculture space. What's the dream? And and and maybe you can give me two images. One with the best case scenario and one with the case scenario that you actually see कि यार ठीक है, मुझे लग रहा है कि ये हैं, ये चीज़ें annoyances हैं, government policy चाहे इतनी अच्छी नहीं है. And so this is the medium case and if everything goes well, this is the best case.

देखिए जी, I think Pakistan has the potential to be a world leader. A lot has to go right for that to happen and I think it's probably a little bit of a stretch. So, you know, in twenty years a lot has to go right and maybe also factors that are probably not within the control of Pakistan almost entirely, right? Right. तो you know Pakistan की geopolitics भी काफी complex है and I think, you know, that plays a part. So, but I do feel that actually if some things go right. For example, we are amazing at tech. पाकिस्तानी people are very entrepreneurial. अगर इन चीज़ों को हम combine करें और इनको हम agriculture में लगाएं और अगर हमारी sort of policy level पर भी थोड़ी सी changes आएं, for example, we start including more women in agriculture. 60% of women, 60% of the workforce in agriculture are women. If we want to do something in agriculture, we have to influence them. Mhmm. We have to give them a stake in it. Right. उनको smartphones पकड़ाएं. Right? If we do things like that, I really think that Pakistan can has the opportunity to be a regional and a global leader in agriculture. हम लोग already एक बहुत बड़ा producer हैं. There is no reason why we cannot become a very productive producer. We could become one of the biggest exporters.

We have the raw raw material and ingredients to do that. And and and are you, do you think, how optimistic would you be 100, zero to 100 में से? I यह हो would say I am 70% optimistic. चाहे that's not bad. I would take that. I would take that. मोहम्मद thank you so much for being part of the show and for sharing all the insight. Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure talking. Likewise. For all of you guys. अगर आपको मोहम्मद की किसी वजह से agreement हो disagreement हो या thoughts on the agriculture space in Pakistan farming. आपका अपना कोई connection हो और आपकी आपको इनकी बातों से कोई insight मिली हो let us know in the comment section below what do you think about Pakistan में agriculture, agriculture tech, future of agriculture in Pakistan इसी के साथ साथ यहां पर कहीं पर easy पैसे jazz cash आ रहा होगा. If you'd like to support the channel, we accept anything from 1 rupee to as much as you like. It's a thought that counts. But anyways, this was सय्यद मज़हबिला संजय दी. You are watching Thought Behind Things. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.