Exploring Vast Farming with Small Farmers | Devi Murthy | TEDxIITKanpur

The founder of Kamal Kisan, an initiative that develops cost-effective smart mechanization solutions for India’s small and marginal farmers, to reduce labour dependence and increase profitability, takes the audience for a dive into the Indian agriculture problem and gives a facile answer to why agriculture is an engineering problem. Surveying small farmers, she realized that a major chunk of problems in agriculture deals small farmers and labour migration. Highlighting the problems that farmers face and their general reluctance towards mechanisation, she believes that true learnings lie in interacting with the farmers at ground level itself. The basic equipment required must be cost-effective and easy to maintain and the solution commenced by her has increased efficiency to 98% which has greatly benefited the farmer. This has all been possible due to the in-depth knowledge of social and economic considerations taken into account by her while manufacturing machines.


Devi Murthy, visionary of Kamal Kisan and founder of Simple Farm Solutions Pvt. Ltd is an electrical engineer turned social worker. According to her, there is a lack of empathy for small farmers in India and this compelled her to work towards helping them improve their farm productivity and lessen their everyday struggles. She works with her team in rural areas of Karnataka to provide the farmers modern farming equipment through service centers. Devi Murthy’s dream is to “see a day in the future when mechanization services become a lifestyle choice for a farmer”. Working tirelessly towards her vision, she has greatly improved the living standard of farmers in Karnataka.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx