Entrepreneurial associations:
Organic agri-business value chain management required us to establish entrepreneurial associations in cultivation, certification, procurement, processing, storage, distribution and retail. A novel approach has been evolved to identify educated, unemployed youths belonging to the producer community in the areas of organic production to set up most of the value chain management facilities and infrastructure. In many cases for the processing of organic products, relationships have also been established with hi-tech, hi-capacity, & hi-quality industry players. In the 5 year starting period associations were established with over 300 entrepreneurs spread across India.
For list of associations click here
Knowledge share linkages:
While Morarka Organic created in-house expertise and also shared the same with others, on many aspects of organic value chain management, it had to look for external support to access knowledge in many other areas. The diversity in agriculture and each component in the agriculture development domain is a subject of high-level of expertise, and as such are already dealt by different institutions mandated for each, both in public as well as private sectors. Morarka Organic has therefore gone the extra mile to establish working relationships with research, academic, regulatory, financial institutions in India and abroad. Today Morarka Organic has over 100 such joint initiative programs in India and abroad.
For list of linkages click here

Offices
The Morarka headquarters is located at Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan, famously known as the Pink City of India. The modern infrastructure of the city, coupled with the traditional work environment provides the ideal setting for an initiative like this. Morarka Organic has its own 20,000 sq.ft. office space set on 2.5 acres (approx.) of land on the outskirts of the city. In addition, it has rented offices in all its project areas across the country. At some places fully functional large offices, while at many other places the local offices double as residence for the field staff as well as meets the requirements of a field office. The collaborative approach and entrepreneurial involvement in all its activities have enabled it to have a very large number of associates, not only in India but in many other countries, such as Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Costa Rica, UK, USA etc.
For list of offices, click here
Training Facilities
Morarka Organic began its field operations from Nawalgarh in Shekhawati a small town about 130 kilometers from Jaipur, famous as the largest open air art gallery of the world. The Chairman of the Morarka Foundation also ancestrally belongs to this place. In about 15 years of its existence the Morarka Foundation has created a very modest and inviting training cum research facility. The town has a population of about 50,000 residents and is surrounded by a catchments area of about 100 villages which forms the core of Morarka's Shekhawati Project Area. This place provides a combination of structured training-cum-learning in organic methods of cultivation along with the opportunity to have hands on experience on any of the 10,000 practicing organic farms in this area. Most of the farmer level training is conducted on the farms itself. In many cases events are organized to enable farmers to visit other organic farmers' fields. While some group training is conducted in the initial stages of a new organic program in a new area, subsequent training is imparted through one-on-one interaction between the farmer & the field worker of the Foundation. Morarka Organic is now also setting up one more training facility at Grewal Farm in the Alwar District. Mr. Ajit Grewal, a long time associate of The Morarka Foundation, is working to promote organic agriculture in India. This new facility will have greater focus on cultivation of organic horticulture crops and value addition activities at the farm level. In addition, all the field offices of Morarka Organic and all the farmers enrolled for organic cultivation also impart training to interested individuals.
For list of location maps, click here
Research & Development
Research & Development has been Morarka Organic’s main strength. We have invested over 70 percent of our own resources in conducting research to find the most effective solutions. Many of them being a first in the world have enabled us to progress very fast. Almost all of them are at the frontier of cutting edge technology in this field. The diversified portfolio of R & D mandate at Morarka Organic has also caused it to become a unique initiative outside of the government. Morarka Organic is now recognized as a leading resource organization in the country. Organic Cultivation Technology Small innovations in our methodologies for implementation have paid us rich dividends. One such activity is related to our own research & development work. Right from the beginning, we had decided that we would not set up any farm of our own to conduct experiments/ trials for developing new technologies for organic cultivation. While this made our job slightly difficult, its outcome has been many times more rewarding. We had multiple trials being conducted simultaneously to test any new method and/or input. This also provided the scope of variations required to test the suitability of a new technology in one go itself. It eliminated the time lag and the need to carry a new technology from lab-scale to field-scale of operations. Anything tested and if found successful, was immediately adopted by many more farmers. In the last ten years or so, Morarka Organic has already developed organic cultivation practices for over 180 different crops in nearly 10 different agro-climatic zones of India. Biotechnology for Agriculture In our efforts to find suitable answers for solving the problems of fertility management, pest management and some other soil and water related issues, we identified the need to understand the natural process better. This enabled us to look at the natural science applications in the Biotechnology domain. This made us to set up a modest biotech lab of our own, in which we carried out the basic research work, but once again field testing was always done at the farmer's field only. The most significant breakthrough by way of vermiculture was the basic process and the enrichment of vermiculture. The probiotic approach for pest management based on plant extracts, and scientific waste management has also been the result of this initiative. Subsequently this lab was upgraded and bifurcated into two sections. One section continued with the original agenda, but another section was created and dedicated to quality management of organic food items. Every product offered by Morarka Organic passes through rigorous quality control procedures carried out by this lab. Both the labs have sufficient qualified and trained HR. In addition to many full time staff members, at any point of time we also have over 20 Biotechnology student trainees from leading educational institutions in Jaipur. Storage, Processing & Value Addition Appropriate technologies conforming to the organic standards for storage, processing and value addition has been the biggest challenge in the journey so far; first due to the non-availability of readymade solutions, second because of the lack of investments by public sector agencies in India in this field. Almost every small activity that needed to be taken up in this field has been developed by Morarka Organic through its own R & D efforts. Non-use of chemical fumigants during storage was the first issue addressed by Morarka Organic. First a simple air-tight container manufacturing method was developed. Both metal bins as well as masonry based wall units storing 3 to 30 quintal grains were introduced for storage at farm level. This technology has now been in use for over 10 years by over 10,000 farmers in the Shekhawati area alone. Subsequently for large scale storage of food products, CO2 fumigation technology has been developed by Morarka Organic. Through in house efforts, Morarka Organic is the third company in the world to have mastered this technology. Similarly for every processing activity, for almost every crop, Morarka Organic has been necessitated to find suitable solutions by way of equipments and processes, either through modifications of existing and or developing some thing completely new. Dehydration of food products using solar vapour squeeze technology has also been one such achievement. In the last three years alone more then 30 different processes and equipments have already been developed by us so far and for more then 20 currently the work is under progress. Information Technology Applications Agriculture being a life sustaining activity for a large number of farmers, has all the complexities associated with the management of volumes this large; both in terms of their numbers, that too spread over very large areas as well as in terms of the number of activities being carried out by them. Initially when we were focused on organic cultivation technology development, we were required to maintain data for performance evaluation of field testing and trials. This was possible due to extensive use of modern information technology (IT) tools, through readymade software applications. Subsequently when time came to be enrolled for organic certification, it became a nightmare to maintain such a vast data through normal software applications. After looking world over for suitable tools, we realized that the right solutions will have to be self-developed. As a result a full fledged team of IT professionals was put in place. In just one year this team developed a software solution for maintaining the farm records of thousands of farmers, that too as per the acceptable norms of international certification agencies. This enabled introduction of group certification norms for organic farmers. It also became another first anywhere in the world, with the highest levels of credibility and security in organic agriculture certification process. Over the years this IT tool has been upgraded, facilitating quality management & procurement operations. Today this IT tool is being used by many other organizations at a very nominal fee. The conversion of farm records in to data was done by data entry operators in cities, but since the last one year a novel initiative has been launched to train village women to perform this job. Today with the IT tools being used by Morarka Organic even the complete traceability records are also available for the products handled by us.
Procurement, Storage, Processing & Value Addition
From the time we had started to procure directly from the organic farmers, we have been continuously building capacities for efficient management of these operations. Since we have been following the philosophy of entrepreneurial involvement, almost 90 percent of our present infrastructure in this domain is owned and managed by them. In all the project areas, the facilities for aggregation of procured materials from very small farmers are run by local entrepreneurs. The field staff trains and assists them to set up facilities like space, weighing measures, packing, batch number labelling, etc. on a cost reimbursement basis. Even the local transport from farm fields to central godown is handled by them. For the present scale of operations, we have storage facilities in Jaipur to maintain an overall stock of about 2000m.t, once again outsourced to entrepreneurs. Majority of the material is kept in cold storage. Some materials are kept in regular godowns as well. With the expansion of business operations, facilities are being created in many project areas also. Processing & Value Addition operations have been broadly divided in to two categories. For products such as cereals and pulses, we have reached sizable scale of operations which has enabled us to establish tie-ups with outsourced service providers. Products like frozen foods, Ready to Eat, tin packs for dals & beans, etc. require very specialized equipments. Since our size is not big enough, we have established tie-ups with others. However the final quality control and packaging is done by us in our in-house facilities. Beginning with 5,000 sq. ft, it has expanded to 35,000 sq. ft in just one year.
Marketing, Distribution & Retail Infrastructure
Morarka Organic currently sells in bulk as well as in retail packs. All bulk pack deliveries are done directly from Jaipur. For retail sales, it is currently being done through Jaipur, Mumbai & Delhi. From these depots, the stocks are transferred for distribution to our own stores, modern retail as well as to the dealers. With increasing business in home delivery as well as in modern retail segments, few more locations are being identified to set up new depot operations.