Hyderabad-based Kheyti draws up expansion plans

City-based farm solutions startup Kheyti has drawn up plans to scale up its operations

Hyderabad: City-based farm solutions startup Kheyti, which recently emerged as one of the five winners of the 2022 Earthshot Prize, has drawn up plans to scale up its operations.

Today, about 1,000 farms across seven States have the Kheyti greenhouse. It wants to increase that number to 50,000 farmers by 2027, said Sathya Raghu Mokkappati, one of the Co-Founders of Kheyti.

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Addressing the media, Kheyti team said it was named the winner in the ‘Protect and Restore Nature’ category for its ‘Greenhouse-in-a-Box’, a low-cost modular greenhouse bundled with services that helps farmers increase their yields, protect those yields from climate risk and make farming environmentally sustainable.

Kheyti will receive a £1 million award and tailored support from The Earthshot Prize Global Alliance. In its second year, The Earthshot Prize had a global nine-month search process.

Over 1,000 applications were considered and 15 finalists from 10 countries were chosen. The final five winners were selected by The Earthshot Prize Council.

The other Co-Founders of Kheyti include Saumya, Kaushik Kappagantulu and Ayush Sharma. They started it to reduce the impact of climate change on smallholder farmers.

“Greenhouses traditionally were limited to large farms. Now, a farm that is just a tenth of an acre can also use the greenhouse. It costs about Rs 50,000-60,000. The setup life is about 15 years but the screens have to be changed in about seven years. Previously, it was thought only exotic plants needed greenhouses. We have proved that productivity of local crops can also be increased using greenhouses,” said Mokkappati.

Plants in a greenhouse require 98% less water than outdoors variants. Yields are seven-times higher, he said, adding that these are helping in increasing the farmers’ incomes, he said.