Billing for your organic store in Madhya Pradesh
Loose grain, jaggery and jars, each with its own rate, and each regular family with its own page.
Tools for an organic shelf in Madhya Pradesh
Godown stock
The wheat stored after the harvest, with the quantity left for the months ahead.
Orders to suppliers
Before the next mahua season, open last season's bags one family after another, so the order you send each forest family starts from what it really brought and not from what you remember.
Daily reports
The kilos of each grain sold in each month, read in the monsoon to decide how much to buy after the next harvest.
Bills on your phone
Each line names the grain, Sharbati wheat or Basmati rice, with the belt it came from in the name.
The godown count, the farmer's own page and the sales read back before buying
The year's money sitting in the godown, with the rent and wages still to pay
The wheat bought after the harvest is a year's money sitting in the godown. Put it into the godown's stock and let every sale come off it, and next month you can see how many kilos are still in sacks and what the month has sold. The rent and the helper's wages are paid from what has sold, and you know how much that is.
Whose wheat is in the sack, from the Sharbati belt to the Basmati belt
A customer asks whose wheat is in the sack. Name each lot with its farmer and its belt, the Sharbati wheat belt or the Basmati rice belt. The bill carries that name, and the farmer's page shows the day the lot came.
Sharbati against Basmati, month by month
After the wheat is nearly gone, open the months of sales and read the kilos of Sharbati wheat beside the kilos of Basmati rice for each month. The two belts' grains do not sell in the same months, and the new harvest is bought to the months the page shows.
Customers who ask where the wheat grew, a year's wheat bought at once and a state centre that sells organic too
Where did this wheat grow?
Sharbati wheat and Basmati rice come from different belts, and a customer who pays more for either wants to know which one she is holding. If the shop cannot say which belt a sack came from, the extra price starts to feel like a favour she is doing you. An open sack looks like any other sack, and the two grains are told apart only by what you remember on a busy day.
The year's wheat arrives in one month and leaves in twelve
A shop that buys the year's wheat after the harvest pays for it in one month, and then the rent, the helper's wages and the festival orders must be paid from what is left over. If the wheat sells faster than you hoped, the shop runs short in February and pays more for the same grain, and if it sells slower, the festival orders wait. Nobody has a number for how long the sacks will last.
The state's own centres sell organic produce too
A separate arrangement at selected state agriculture procurement centres has boosted sales of organic produce, an agriculture department official said in 2020. For a private organic shop that means the customer has another place to buy, and he will compare. The shop that cannot say why its price is different loses him at the counter.
Indore's soyabean and Sagar's mills, flour and ghee
Two Madhya Pradesh districts are worth knowing for what an organic shop sells from them.
- Indore is called a commercial capital, and soyabean is a kharif crop grown in most of the district.
- Sagar is a major road and agricultural trade centre, with oil and flour milling, ghee processing, handloom cotton weaving and bidi making.
A farmer group's market stall and online shop in one place
Questions from organic shop owners in Madhya Pradesh
I buy organic wheat from three different farmers. Can I tell which lot a customer's flour came from?
Yes, if you keep each farmer's wheat as its own item and note it on the order from that farmer. The stock then shows how much of each lot is left, and you can say which farmer's wheat is in the sack.
A customer says the state centre sells organic produce too. What does my shop offer beyond the rate?
A bill she can keep, with the lot named by its farmer, and a page of her own, so you know what she bought last time and can set it ready before she comes.
In the mahua season families from the forest villages bring dried mahua in small bags. Can I note each bag against the family?
Yes. Open a supplier page for each family and note every bag when it comes, with the kilos and the day. The mahua in your stock is the sum of the bags, and each family's page shows what it has brought.
Madhya Pradesh's organic acres and the wheat and Basmati belts
APEDA says Madhya Pradesh has the largest area under organic certification of any state, as on 31 March 2024, and is the second-largest producer after Maharashtra. A shop here can ask its suppliers where the grain was grown, and the answer is likely to be a field in the same state.
Organic Sharbati wheat is grown in Vidisha, Sagar and Sehore, and organic Basmati rice in Raisen, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Mandla and Balaghat, says Deccan Herald in 2020. A shop that stocks both keeps each as its own item, so the wheat belt and the Basmati belt are not mixed on one line of the diary.