Billing for your organic store in Himachal Pradesh
Each grower's lot, each loose weight and each family's order, kept on your phone.
Whose maize is this? Small lots and loose weights at a Himachal natural-farming store
This year's maize on top, last year's at the bottom
A new lot comes in and goes into the same bin as what was left from last year. The older flour is at the bottom, and a customer who wants the fresh one cannot be told which is which. By the next season the bin holds two harvests, and you cannot say which one a bad batch came from.
Small lots, agreed at the gate
A grower brings twenty kilos of beans this week and nothing the week after. The rate is agreed at the gate, by word, while the next sack is being weighed. By the end of the month nobody remembers which lot was bought at which rate, and the grower has his own idea of it.
Sold loose, a little at a time
The rajma bin is the one you look at most, and the one you trust least. When it runs short there are two stories: a sale that was never billed, or a lot that came short on arrival. Families from the town want a quarter kilo of rajma, a half kilo of jaggery, a handful of seeds, and none of them is worth a note.
Farm districts of Himachal, from Mandi's fields to the orchards of Solan
A store for naturally grown food hears about farms from every district, and these are some of the places its growers talk about.
- About 79% of the people of Mandi district depend on agriculture, and Mandi town sits where National Highways 20, 21 and 70 meet.
- Solan has a horticulture and forestry university at Nauni, and its district site calls it the 'Mushroom city of India'.
- In Hamirpur it is wheat, barley and gram in rabi and maize and paddy in kharif, with a shift to cash crops.
- Sirmaur has 305 registered cooperative societies, 121 of them primary agricultural ones.
What a store for naturally grown food keeps on the phone
Orders to suppliers
The next lot of rajma or maize asked of the grower when the bin runs low, with what comes in noted under his name.
Low stock warnings
The grower has to come down from his hill village with the next lot, so the warning that the rajma bin or the jaggery is low is read days before the bin is empty.
Your own online shop
A shop page to share with families in the town, listing the grains, pulses and flours you hold from naturally grown farms.
Offers for regular customers
An offer for the families who come every month for the same flour and pulses.
From the grower's gate to the 250 gram pack
Last year's lot and this year's lot as two items
When a new lot arrives, give it its own item with the harvest year in its name, and leave last year's as it is. The counter sells from the older one first, the bill says which lot went, and the customer who wants this year's flour can be told that it is this year's.
The rate agreed at the gate is written at the gate
When a lot arrives, note it on the grower's page with the weight and the rate you agreed. At the month's end the page adds up every lot, and what you owe him is on one line. The talk about which lot was dearer is over before it begins.
A quarter kilo off an open bin, counted off the bin
Keep each bin as an item in kilos. A quarter kilo of beans or a half kilo of jaggery takes exactly that much off the count. When the bin on your phone and the bin on the floor differ at closing, you know the difference came from the bin and not from guesswork.
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Farmer groups that put their stalls and their online shop in one place
What organic store owners in Himachal ask
A grower wants part of his money for the rajma before the lot has sold. Can I pay him that way?
Yes. Put what you pay him on his page with the day, as an advance against the lot. When the lot sells, the page shows the lot's value and the advance beside it, and the balance is what you still owe him.
A summer visitor wants rajma from the next harvest too. Can I note her name?
Yes. Open a page in her name and note the rajma she asked for. When the next harvest's rajma is in the stock, you read her page and tell her on WhatsApp that it has come.
The bin is short at the end of the week. How do I tell a customer who was not billed from a lot that came short?
Start from the day the lot came in, which is on the grower's page. If the bin was full that day and short by the end of the week, a sale was never written. If it was short from the first day, the lot came short.
Natural farming in Himachal, and why it needs shops
Officials said in September 2025 that more than 2,22,893 farmers grow crops naturally on 38,437 hectares in 3,584 panchayats of Himachal Pradesh. The growers a store for such food can buy from are spread over many panchayats.
Natural-farming growers in Himachal struggle for market access and assured prices, a 2022 Down To Earth report on a Centre for Science and Environment field visit says. A shop that takes their lots at a rate agreed at the gate gives them one more place to sell.