Case study: Stellapps, making a difference in the rural economy in a sustainable way

Nutreco invested into Stellapps in 2021, a company whose vision is to significantly improve farm profitability in the Indian dairy industry in a sustainable way through its value-added, technology-led platform services.

Stellapps has partnered with 2.1 million women farmers in India who are now taking ownership of their own dairy farms and many of whom run Stellapps village-level collection centres (mooMark Extension Points). With initiatives like a fully solar- powered milk chilling plant and electric vehicles, Stellapps has been working consciously toward reducing farmers’ carbon footprint. Through its partnership with Stellapps, Nutreco provides products that help farmers improve productivity and also shares its extensive expertise with them on the feed, farm and health aspects of growing dairy cows.

One important enabler for ensuring farmers can maintain a stable income stream is linking them more closely with markets for their products. StellApps’ productivity-led market linkage service, mooMark, procures 200K litres of milk per day from the farmers with a transparent grading and pricing system. Through advisory and input (feed and supplement) services, mooMark has helped farmers increase their income by 110% over the last 24 months. The average volume of milk poured per farmer has also risen by 65%. With a 39% improvement in cattle productivity, methane emissions have also dropped by 56%, which has a significant positive impact on the environment.

Through its mooPay financial services arm, Stellapps is economically empowering small- holder farmers by offering credit and other financialservices. A full 65% of its customers are farmers who have never taken a loan from a regulated entity. Through an alternative credit score called mooScoreTM, mooPay provides loans to “new-to- credit" or subprime farmers. Stellapps expects mooPay to reach an assets-under-management level of $10M shortly.

Stellapps is also committed to ensuring gender diversity in its operations. Women make up 68% of farmers associated with mooMark and 85% of mooMark service providers. Of the farmers who have received loans, 53% are women.

The association between Stellapps and Nutreco has been of immense value to our farmers, who have been using Nutreco products and have seen an overall improvement in the health of their cattle. The Nutreco team works hand in hand with the mooGrow team to create awareness about cattle health and nutrition matters.