Climate change makes farming in India a potentially lethal gamble. But a startup aims to provide affordable greenhouses to more than a million farmers.
When 33-year-old farmer Kamlesh Birla first heard of the greenhouse-in-a-box, he was skeptical. Birla, who has a chili nursery and also grows tomatoes and cucumbers, is based in Boruth village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. And though his crops require considerable fungicides to address relentless pests and need watering due to a lack of rain, he was nervous about making the investment. He listened to the representatives from Kheyti, the company that was marketing the product, who were in his village to meet with existing customers, but “Everything was going over my head,” he says.
Nonetheless, he kept listening, including to the farmers who’d already purchased these small, affordable greenhouses created by Kheyti, which won The Earthshot Prize in 2022 for their product. Finally, Birla says, “I bought it in May last year. I thought ‘let me try it and see’.”
Having now used the micro greenhouse for over eighteen months, Birla says its benefits are clear. “I have to use only half of the pesticides and water I used before,” he says. What’s more, the greenhouse in a box has boosted Birla’s farm’s productivity, reduced costs, and increased revenue — an outcome, he says, that other farmers would doubtless enjoy as well.
Around 60 percent of India's 1.43 billion people depend on agriculture for a living, but farming in India has often been a gamble. There are floods or excessive heat or droughts to contend with, and many farmers lack the money to invest in the latest technologies. Climate change has made the situation worse. Farmers do not have a regular, predictable income, and thousands die by suicide every year due to the burden of debt and poverty.
The more the founders of Kheyti learned about these challenges, the more motivated they were to help farmers address their problems. The group initially founded an agricultural enterprise called Cosmos Green. “We knew the problems of agriculture on the periphery,” explains Ayush Sharma, one of the founders, “but we thought, let’s practically understand them.”
While practicing farming at Cosmos Green, Sharma and his team learned firsthand how climate impacts farming. After losing an entire yield of onions to untimely rains, they turned their attention to how farmers might become “climate resilient,” as Sharma put it. “During our college days, we were hearing a lot about farmer suicides, especially in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra,” Sharma says. “This was a very grave problem.”
After research, prototyping, and speaking to farmers from across India, the founders realized that most existing greenhouses were unaffordable for small farmers. Also, most of the greenhouses on the market were suited to colder climates in Western countries and weren’t designed to withstand the heat of Indian summers. “We focused on what could be the smallest possible customized greenhouse that we could offer to a small farmer,” Sharma says, “so that they get a regular income from agriculture.”
The founders also realized that, along with the product itself, the farmers needed some hand-holding, training, and education about the technology. “We decided to give the farmers a bundle of services with the greenhouse: an input kit, seeds, fertilizers, field visits, and call center support from agronomists.” Partnering with some philanthropic groups has allowed them to subsidize some of the costs of the greenhouses, Sharma adds.
The base model for Kheyti’s greenhouse, called Rakshak, is priced at around INR 65,000 ($780) and comes in sizes starting from 240 square meters (about 2,600 square feet) — “60% smaller than most other greenhouses on the market,” Sharma says. “It’s a simple technology,” he adds. “I explain to farmers that it acts as a shield for crops against climate extremes just like a raincoat or an umbrella protects us. The greenhouse helps give the right amount of heat, light, air, and rain to the crops.”
Rampal Choudhary, from the north-western state of Rajasthan, is one of roughly 3,000 farmers currently using the greenhouse in the box. Choudhary grows peanuts, millets like bajra and jowar, and vegetables like cucumber. “Several farmers in my neighborhood are using the greenhouse from Kheyti,” he says. “It has helped my crops by reducing the need for fungicides and water. Also, crops in the open are often eaten up or damaged by cattle or pests, which is not happening now because of the greenhouse.” While Kheyti has a way to go before it attains its goal of reaching one million farmers, each story like Choudhary’s is one more farmer better equipped to handle a changing climate.
