Three years ago, HollandDoor met a family in Bangalore who had a mission: to contribute to rural development in Karnataka, India, by offering a practical training and service center for farmers called AgroTie.

The center provided a place for the rural community to gain knowledge, experience and support in innovative growing strategies and value chain approaches.

PUM advised and helped create a 3,000 m² greenhouse. HollandDoor supported the efforts and trained newly recruited employees with financial support from Nuffic.

All types of services were developed in a relatively short period of time, such as growing and selling high-quality seedlings, communication between producers and market participants, drawing attention to growing, sorting by the quality and size of products, and, of course, consulting and training manufacturers.

The training program began a year ago. The training was attended not only by AgroTie recruits, but also by the AgroStar team. AgroStar offers an app for manufacturers with educational content and an e-commerce store.

Several training weeks were spent in India and the Netherlands. Between each school week, a local expert Tarannum Kadarbhai discussed with the students everything that was studied in the training modules and how they could turn the lessons into tips for manufacturers.

The young AgroTie team was able to quickly learn in training. They currently operate a greenhouse where many types of vegetables are grown.

In addition, they created Whatsapp groups to inform manufacturers and demonstrated a high level of knowledge and trust in the training courses they offer.

Also, thousands of manufacturers have received valuable information through the AgroStar online application.