Market Creation and Sustainability

The process of market creation by IDEI is such that it ensures its sustainability from the beginning by creating a strong and continuing demand for the technology and motivating and nurturing an effective supply chain. As this is accomplished ,IDEI withdraws from the process, but the ongoing demand plus the supply chain's capacity to respond ensures benefit for poor farmers.

Synergy between partners

For a greater Sustainability aspect a synergistic coalition of stakeholders e.i. the farmers, the manufacturers research institutes and NGOs is promoted for proper leveraging of resources and channeling of technologies.

Instead of creating new structures and resources we have built upon the existing ones and synergized them as we believe that isolated interventions are barely sustained
In essence, IDE (India)'s model for sustainable development involves bridging gaps at various levels:

• Between technological inventions in research institutions and their adaptations to suit the needs of small and marginal farmers: IDEI identifies such technological innovations from across India and the world, and modifies them to cater to the needs and affordability of small farmers.

• Between availability of low-cost technologies and generating awareness about them among small farmers based in remote villages: IDEI employs innovative promotional techniques to generate awareness about IDEI's products among the marginal farmers.

• Between demand for IDEI products and their supply to small farmers in rural areas: We develop and nurture the commercial marketing channel and the NGO network to ensure the accessibility of our products in the remotest corners of the country.

The private supply chain

The establishment of a penetrative delivery mechanism - a commercial marketing channel - to ensure availability of all products at the village level has helped in facilitating the overall sustainability of the development process.

IDE (India) identifies potential quality manufacturers and motivates them to fabricate the treadle pumps on a regular basis (product design and quality assurance provided by IDEI. For Aditi Kits we identify manufacturers who will supply components of our indeginously designed kits ,adhering to the quality norms / STPs laid down by our R&D.

With NGOs

Moreover, non-governmental organisations constitute an important link in IDE (India)'s partnership. Sharing a common mandate of development of marginal farmers through their improved access to market informations and knowledge base on good agricultural practices , we view them as important stakeholders in the development process. Since our inception, NGOs have evinced a strong interest in disseminating and generating awareness on IDEI products to small and marginal farmers. NGOs provide an excellent network for sales, distribution, awareness generation, credit provision through self-help groups, product installation and after-sales service. NGOs also assist IDEI by advising farmers on good seeds, fertilisers and cropping patterns.

By creating commercial marketing channels and a network of like-minded NGOs for IDEI's products, we accomplish two important objectives:

• Because the system is commercially viable, it sustains itself for as long as there is a market demand for the products thus ensuring the continuous availability of the products through the marketing channel.

• Because the farmer is a customer, manufacturers, distributors and dealers respond to farmers' collective market demands. Through exercising purchasing power, the farmer (unlike a traditional NGO beneficiary) has a degree of control over the access to the products he or she requires.

- Generation of ownership and accountability for Self sustainability of the program : Moving a step further we are training the market supply chain to take up the promotional activities and quality assurance of the products to instill better ownership for the program. Also our aim is to phase out of the product brand and stimulate competition to create a viable market.

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