Sahyadri Farms: A Farmer-Led Collective Transforming Indian Agriculture
Guets Author: Mr. Ramesh Kotnana is a Senior Manager at the ISB Centre for Business Innovation, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Telangana (India); A Amarender Reddy, Joint Director, Policy Support Research, ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management (NIBSM), Raipur, Chhattisgarh (India)
29 January 2026, New Delhi: In just over a decade, Sahyadri Farms has grown from a small collective of grape growers in Nashik to India’s largest farmer-owned mega enterprise exporting to 42 countries, commanding a 15–17% share of the global table grape market, and emerging as a serious force in the domestic agricultural space. With a turnover of ₹1,954.7 crore in FY25 and a 26% CAGR since inception in 2010, Sahyadri is increasingly being hailed as the “Amul of Horticulture.”
What makes this rise remarkable is not merely the scale, but the ownership model. Sahyadri is fully farmer-owned—about 30,000 small and marginal farmers cultivating 40,000 acres collectively hold 100% equity, each with equal voting rights. The organisation is also a champion of gender inclusion: 50% of its shareholders and 32% of its workforce are women.
With world-class facilities spread across 170 acres in Nashik and Nanded, employing 7,000 people and processing 3,500 tonnes of produce daily, Sahyadri has built one of India’s most sophisticated farm-to-fork value chains. Beyond grapes, its portfolio now spans bananas, tomatoes, pomegranates, mangoes, citrus, cashews, turmeric, chilli, garlic, dried fruits, juices and premium extracts.
As the world celebrates 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives, Sahyadri stands as one of India’s most successful experiments in farmer-led enterprise.
Vilas Shinde: The Verghese Kurien of Horticulture
Sahyadri’s story cannot be told without its founder, Vilas Vishnu Shinde, a smallholder farmer from Adgaon village in Nashik.
Trained as an engineer, Shinde was influenced early by reformers Sharad Joshi and Anna Hazare, with whom he briefly worked as development activist. He began cultivating commercial crops, grapes, baby corn, broccoli, asparagus to cater to rising demand from Nashik and nearby cities.
By the early 2000s, Nashik was emerging as a grape-export hub. Shinde entered the export business and tasted success until 2006, when a failed shipment that didn’t meet quality standards caused a devastating loss of ₹6.5 crore.
The setback proved transformative. It convinced him that individual farmers could not survive fragmented world markets fluctuations dominated by intermediaries, and that the cooperative model that powered Amul was the only viable path for horticulture.
Inspired by Amul, Driven by Farmers
In 2010, Shinde brought together 110 grape farmers to form the Sahyadri Farmers Producer Company Limited (SFPCL) an enterprise “of, by, and for farmers. The aim was simple: collectivise production, build a high-quality supply chain, and access premium export markets together. The model worked.
Phase I: Laying the Foundation (2010–2016)
Operating without external capital initially, Sahyadri scaled rapidly through trust and transparency. Sales grew from ₹6.71 crore in 2012 to ₹94 crore in 2016; membership rose to 680. By 2015, Sahyadri had become India’s largest exporter of grapes to Europe, a position it continues to retain.
Phase II: Creating infrastructure and Expansion (2017–2022)
A ₹94 crore debt infusion allowed Sahyadri to set up world-class processing lines and diversify. A pivotal partnership with Hindustan Unilever to manufacture Kissan products strengthened its processing credentials and encouraged it to build its own retail line of products in domestic markets.
Sahyadri expanded domestically through 50 distribution centres, established onsite residue testing, built India’s first advanced lab for soil and plant diagnostics, and digitised crop advisory and procurement. By 2022, revenue had grown to ₹750 crore, backed by ₹160 crore in additional capital. The FPC members cultivated 27,000 acres and processed 1.5 lakh tonnes of produce.
Phase III: Technology & Resilience (2019–2021)
Sahyadri deployed automatic weather stations and soil moisture sensors across member farms, enabling precision irrigation and real-time monitoring through the FarmSetu and Vesatogo digital platforms.
During the pandemic, when supply chains collapsed, Sahyadri delivered fresh produce baskets to over 3 lakh households in Mumbai and Pune within 12 hours, procuring more than 55,000 tonnes of tomatoes and ensuring uninterrupted farm incomes. The organisation adopted SAP ERP and formed Sahyadri Farms Post Harvest Care Limited (SFPHCL) in 2020 to attract private and institutional investors.
Phase IV: Global Capital, Global Ambition (2022–Present)
In 2022, Sahyadri became the first Indian FPC to receive foreign investment of ₹310 crore from European investors, followed by ₹390 crore in 2024 from US and European partners. These funds are now powering a fully integrated automated horticulture platform built on advanced processing, technology deployment and high-value product development to meet the needs of high-end consumers of both domestic and international markets.
Handholding other FPOs
Sahyadri is now mentoring 200 Farmer Producer Organisations and supporting over one lakh farmers as it expands beyond Maharashtra into Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The company is introducing high-quality varieties, building capacity among small farmers, and planning large-scale replacements of traditional fruit varieties across 20,000 acres.
Its next big milestone is even more ambitious: a public listing. If successful, Sahyadri may become India’s first farmer-owned organisation to go public, creating unprecedented wealth for thousands of farmer-shareholders. A unicorn valuation is no longer a distant dream.
A Cooperative Blueprint India Cannot Ignore
Sahyadri’s rise shows that horticulture like dairy can become a transformational engine for rural prosperity if farmers control value chains and build modern institutions. Its fully farmer-owned model, robust technology backbone, and integrated value chain offer a replicable blueprint for India’s 10,000+ FPOs.
At a time when farmers across the country face climate risks, volatile markets and rising input costs, Sahyadri demonstrates that collectivisation, technology and professional management can convert vulnerability into strength.
Amul reshaped India’s dairy economy. Sahyadri Farms may well be doing the same for fruits and vegetables.
Also Read: ISARC Director Awarded with Uttar Pradesh’s Highest Civilian Award
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