By Dianne Nongrum
SHILLONG:
Meghalaya abounds in natural beauty of all sorts and is home to a large variety of fruits, vegetables, medicinal plants and spices. Most of the items are well known outside the state with more and more people running a business selling them. While some do it for profit, there are others who do it with the idea to connect buyers to sellers.
Alfae Dayan Marbaniang from Shillong and founder of Omil Farms, which was established in 2020, said that his dream is to build on what Meghalaya has to offer.
“Seeing the rise in demand of the natural products from our state, Omil Farms started to work closely with the local farmers from across the state by forming clusters for each produce in order to meet the rapid increase of demand of our clients from across the country. Being a state which follows the traditional farming methods, it ensures we get authentic produce like our famous lakadong turmeric, perilla seeds, ginger, wild medicinal pepper, cinnamon, bay leaves and a wide range of honey like mandarin honey, wild forest honey, litchi honey, white honey and mustard honey,” he said.
Alfae, who is a graduate staying in Madan Laban, said he came up with the idea to start his business after seeing the need of many buyers. Another thing he wanted was to uplift the local farmers by selling their produce and also create a chain from farmer to consumer. The mission of Omil Farms, he said, is to build a strong relationship with farmers to ensure there is compromise with the produce they supply.
When asked about the difficulties he faced while starting his business, he said, “Developing a relationship with farmers and gaining their trust was difficult at the start. Apart from that, logistics is the most difficult task, as we need to depend on adjoining states to ship our products across the country. The high price which we incur while transporting the goods is another problem.”
His business is growing day by day, he said, though a little help from the government would go a long way. “As an entrepreneur of the state, I would like to say that the government can help us by providing some kind of subsidy on the logistics part, so as to help us transport from one location to the other without any burden on our capital investment,” he said.
On the advice he would give to entrepreneurs who want to start something of their own, he said, “As an entrepreneur myself, I would like to suggest to others to always look for different avenues which are available and sustainable in the market, something which is needed by the masses. Yes there will be hardships and challenges, so we need to be strong and content with what we do or what we aspire to achieve. A very important note to all is that we, as tribals, should work as one so that we can uplift each other in our various ventures.”
If anyone is interested in availing the products he has on offer, they can visit his Instagram page @omilfarms.