From Code to Crops: How Aneesh Jain Is Rewiring Indian Agriculture with Gram Unnati

In a world obsessed with unicorns and valuations, there’s a quieter kind of revolution brewing—in the fields of rural India. It doesn’t involve glitzy tech hubs or billion-dollar apps. It involves farmers, soil, uncertainty... and trust.

At the heart of this movement is Aneesh Jain, a soft-spoken IIT graduate who once coded algorithms but today solves the biggest puzzle in Indian agriculture: how to make farming predictable, profitable, and dignified.

A Detour That Became Destiny

Aneesh didn’t plan to be a farmer’s ally. After IIT Kharagpur and a stint at a top consulting firm, an MBA seemed the next logical step. But before applying, he took a detour—a one-year stint in the development sector, just to “gain some perspective.”

That decision changed everything.

He landed in rural Rajasthan, working with soybean farmers on a project backed by a philanthropic foundation and a major agri-processor. The goal was textbook: improve yields, increase incomes. But reality had other plans.

“Yes, we improved productivity,” Aneesh recalls. “But then the market crashed. Net income remained the same.”

It was a hard lesson—productivity without market access is a hollow victory. And it planted the seed for what would later become Gram Unnati.

Falling in Love with the Problem

Aneesh’s entry into agri-entrepreneurship wasn’t born out of romanticism for farming. It was born out of a stubborn, obvious problem staring him in the face:

Farmers don’t know who will buy their produce. Buyers don’t know whom to trust for reliable sourcing.

The tragedy? Both sides are struggling—while the system in between remains broken.

“It wasn’t that I fell in love with agriculture,” Aneesh admits. “I fell in love with the problem. It was everywhere, and yet no one was solving it.”

Trust as Infrastructure

Gram Unnati is built on a deceptively simple premise: start from demand. Identify exactly what the buyer wants—what crop, what quality, in what quantity, and when. Then build a supply chain backwards from there.

This demand-led approach flips the conventional farming model. No more blind sowing. No more guesswork. Just clarity.

But clarity is just the beginning. What really powers Gram Unnati is trust.

“This isn’t an open marketplace where anyone can show up and sell,” Aneesh explains. “We co-create highly specific, customized supply chains with trusted partners—on both sides.”

And farmers? They’re not clients or beneficiaries. They’re collaborators.

The Farmer's Blind Gamble

In every other industry, suppliers know who their buyer is. A bolt-maker in the auto industry doesn’t guess where his bolts will end up. But Indian farmers? They plant with hope, not information.

Aneesh lays it bare: “A wheat farmer doesn't know who will buy his produce, at what price, or whether anyone will buy it at all. He’s investing blindly. The weather could double or halve his yield. And there’s no price assurance.”

All this, while his urban counterpart in manufacturing signs annual contracts with predictable margins.

The result? Crop gluts, price crashes, wasted produce, and farmer despair. Every year, we see potatoes rotting on highways and tomatoes thrown on the streets—not because we produce too little, but because we can’t connect the dots.

Gram Unnati’s solution is market assurance, if not price guarantee. At the very least, the farmer deserves to know: “If I grow it, someone will buy it.”

Organic Growth: One Farmer at a Time

Gram Unnati now works with nearly 200,000 farmers. But Aneesh is quick to note—it wasn’t viral growth. It was organic, slow, and grounded.

What made farmers stay?

“It’s not like we offered some miracle variety or secret tech,” he says. “We just took public knowledge, curated it for them, and stood by them.”

Standing by them. Through drought years. Through bumper yields. Through price crashes. Even when the value-add wasn’t dramatic—what mattered was presence, consistency, and respect.

The Hardest Crop to Change: Mindset

Ask Aneesh about crop diversification—getting farmers to switch from water-intensive paddy to climate-resilient maize—and he’ll tell you: “You’re not just asking them to change crops. You’re asking them to gamble their livelihood.”

It’s not ignorance. It’s risk aversion, community inertia, and market visibility.

Even if maize makes more economic sense, if the neighbor is growing paddy, the farmer will too. Because the market knows paddy. Buyers exist. Storage exists.

So Gram Unnati steps in, not just with data or advice—but with assurance. “If we ask you to grow it, we’ll ensure someone is there to buy it.”

Not All Tech Is Useful. Not All Farmers Are Risk-Averse.

Twelve years into the agri-tech wave, Aneesh has seen hundreds of innovations come and go. Many were promising. Few got adopted.

Why?

“Because value has to be obvious. And affordability is everything.”

Indian farmers will spend ₹1 lakh if convinced of value. But won’t spend ₹10 if they’re unsure.

That’s why Gram Unnati focuses on no-cost or low-cost interventions. Tiny tweaks, like changing sowing direction based on wind or slope, or preventive seed treatment, can make a massive difference.

“These aren’t rocket science,” Aneesh shrugs. “They’re just underutilized truths.”

Where Are the Foot Soldiers?

Perhaps the most haunting insight Aneesh shares isn’t about supply chains or pricing—it’s about people.

“There’s a major talent crisis in rural agriculture,” he says. “Few young Indians want to work on the ground.”

Even Gram Unnati struggles to hire people willing to face the sun, rain, and cold, and talk to farmers in their fields. The problem? Our education system doesn’t train—or inspire—youth to serve rural India.

The solution? Build a new generation of motivated, trained rural professionals, people who dedicate at least the early years of their career to the field. People who care. People who stay.

The Future of Food Is the Future of India

When asked about the next two decades of Indian agriculture, Aneesh doesn’t blink.

“This is the most essential industry there is,” he says. “AI can fail. Tech jobs can dry up. But food? That’s forever.”

And it’s no longer just about feeding stomachs. It’s about nutrition, food safety, and climate resilience. India is now the world’s largest population—we must ensure that we grow enough, grow sustainably, and grow wisely.

Agriculture still provides 50–80% of annual income for a vast section of Indians. It’s the spine of rural India. If done right, it can be a job creator—not a poverty trap.

A Gentle Call to the Government

Aneesh doesn’t criticize policymakers—he empathizes with them. He knows agricultural innovation is slow. A new seed takes a season to prove. A pilot needs a year to scale.

But he urges state governments to embrace risk-taking and experimentation. Some pilots will fail. That’s okay. What works must be identified, monitored, and rapidly scaled—with the government’s reach and credibility.

“Private sector can’t wait a year for results. Governments can,” he says. “Let them be the patient champions of change.”

Final Thoughts: A Quiet, Relentless Revolution

Aneesh Jain isn’t trying to build a billion-dollar startup. He’s trying to build a fair system.

A system where the farmer isn’t gambling, but calculating. Where market access isn’t a miracle, but a given. Where trust replaces uncertainty, and dignity replaces dependency.

Gram Unnati is a work in progress—but it’s already proof that when you build with empathy, clarity, and integrity, you don’t just change lives.

You change the system.