Billing for your organic store in Arunachal Pradesh
Small lots from local farmers, each with its own rate, on one bill and one stock list.
From a farmer's few sacks to a shelf a customer can trust
The jar's weight stays after the tag falls off
A household jar comes with a tag that falls off in the first week. The bill and the stock both carry the weight, and any helper at the counter reads the same figure, whether you or he is selling the jar. The customer sees the same weight on her bill as on the jar on the shelf.
The bill a traveller carries out of the hills
A traveller buying honey and dried shoots on his way out of the hills wants to tell people at home what he bought. The bill goes to his phone with the weights and the day. He can show it at home, and next year he comes back to you for the same honey.
A relative in the plains orders honey and millets from your online shop
Someone far from the hills sees your shop's own online page and orders a box of honey and millets. The order comes to the same place as the counter's bills and takes its quantity off the same stock, so the honey sold to a visitor and the honey sold online are never counted twice.
Why an organic shelf in Arunachal fills from many small hands
Honey and dried bamboo shoots in reused jars, known only by the household
Forest honey and dried bamboo shoots come in reused jars, each from a named household, and the household's name is all that is on the jar. Customers ask for the honey of the house they trust. When three jars from three households stand together, you cannot tell from the lid whose is whose, or what each weighs.
Goods from certified land and goods from a neighbour's plot, side by side
Some of what you sell comes from land that has an organic certificate, and some from a neighbour's plot that grows the same way without one. Both sit in the same basket at the same rate. A customer who asks which is which gets an answer from your memory of who brought it, and the memory is the only record.
The honey a customer saw cheaper in a big shop in the plains
A customer who has travelled tells you the honey cost less in a big city shop. You know yours comes from a forest nearby and that the rate covers the climb, but you have no way to show it. The rate is argued at the counter, and a sale is lost to a jar you cannot compare.
Tools for a shelf of vegetables, grains and local farm goods
Bills on your phone
A kilo of red rice, two jars of hill honey and a bunch of dried bamboo shoots, shown on the screen at the counter and then sent.
Orders to suppliers
An order to the household that makes the pickles, with what it brought written beside what you asked for.
Low stock warnings
A level for honey and millets, the goods that visitors buy to carry away, so the warning comes before the last jar goes.
Daily reports
The days of a short vegetable season, kept in the report, so next year's first rate is set from this year's days.
Online orders
Orders from your own online shop, for honey and millets that a relative far away wants sent, taken off the same stock as the counter.
Around Rupa, Bomdila, Dirang and Shergaon, where vegetables are a main livelihood
Organic vegetables come from the same hill slopes that supply the ordinary markets, and a shop owner learns the names of the places they are grown.
- Growing tomato, cabbage and chilli around Rupa, Bomdila, Dirang and Shergaon is a main livelihood in West Kameng, and rose and orchid flowers are also grown.
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Farmer groups that brought their stalls and their online shop together
Farmers, villages and vegetables: what an organic store gets asked
A jar from a household kitchen has no weight on it. How do I sell it by weight?
Weigh it once when it arrives, and add it as an item with its weight in the name and its own rate. Every bill after that carries the weight, and the stock of that jar size is counted alone.
Forest honey comes in jars of three sizes from the same household. Are they three items?
Yes. Name each size with the household, such as small, medium and large. The bill says which jar was sold, and the household's smaller jars are not mistaken for its larger ones when a family asks for the same one again.
Visitors from the plains do not trust a handful. How do I show them a fair weight?
Weigh in front of them and put the weight on the bill. The bill names the ginger or the cardamom with its grams, and the visitor sees the same number you see. The handful stays the way your own people buy.
A pilot shop in Itanagar and a target of 20,000 hectares
The Arunachal Fresh Food Products shop in Itanagar, a pilot of the state Agriculture Marketing Board, retails organic and fresh vegetables and other food products of local farmers. A private organic store in the capital stands in the same town as this shop, and its owner has to say, shelf by shelf, what makes his own stock worth the walk.
The Chief Minister said organic certification was already held for around 5,000 hectares, against a 20,000-hectare target under the Mission Organic Value Chain Development programme. If the target is met the supply of certified produce will grow, and a store that already keeps each farmer's lot apart will find it easier to take on more of it.