As Mahatma Gandhi once proclaimed that ‘India’s soul lives in its villages,’ Pankaj Kalita, the Director of an International Company, Wubitu Eco International, believes that India’s healthy future lies in India’s empowered farming and agriculture connected to India’s healthcare industry.
Sharing his vision for India’s health improvement, Pankaj reveals, “I must create more of the young entrepreneurs working into agri-business. My paramount vision is to create a team of Agro-Entrepreneurs for the betterment of India and adjoin agri-business with the health sector to make people live a healthy life with our natural products, especially Stevia, in upcoming generations. I wish to make the youngsters emboldened to work for agriculture, agri-business, and agro-industry and know how to use its by-products along with it, do much of the research, innovation, and development in the future.”
Pankaj is already transforming North-East’s farming and agriculture community by helping them financially, technically, and informatively to cultivate, grow, and then sell Stevia plants produce to national and multinational pharmaceutical companies, thus aligning agro-industry with the country’s healthcare industry.
Inspiringly Organic Innovation
Sharing his inspiration behind venturing into the industry, Pankaj says, was firstly his passionate love for plants and their benefits for the people. “After discovering about Stevia, I felt its importance for the people these days who are fighting a variety of diseases and are not able to cure them quickly even with many modern allopathic medicines.”
So initiating Stevia here was indeed a need. Stevia is a natural sweetener and sugar replacer, one of the best medicines to cure Diabetes. At that time, many of Pankaj’s family members had Diabetes. Stevia improved their health a lot more than he expected. “By this, I got the inspiration to work on Stevia. By seeing its present and future benefits, I became determined to work on this remarkable product,” he reveals.
However, Pankaj became the Most Successful Agro-Entrepreneur and Powerful Business Leader because of a fortunate turn of events amidst a professional crisis due to personal circumstances. He accepts, “I could never think about building up an industry or I’ll reach the position I’m at present.”
A Monumental Success Saga
It so happened that after doing his MBA, Pankaj joined a small company to provide service for his family’s financial needs. Till 2008, he did the job. But then his father’s health worsened. “So I had to take my father to Vellore, Chennai.”
For that, Pankaj’s company wasn’t ready to grant him the leave. Thus, he resigned from his post for other reasons besides this main one. At that time, he had to struggle for work. But then he came across a remarkable phenomenon from a group of people. Pankaj met a bunch of people who were into Agri-business when he was staying with his family in a hotel in Chennai for his father’s treatment. After many discussions about it, Pankaj was curious and eager to get into it. Also, the fact that he had no job nudged him to ask those people if it was a good idea for him to join them in the Agri-business.
Of Surmounting Adversities
They agreed and elaborated on how his Northeast is a whole stockpile of Organic essentials. They suggested to him an instructor in Tamil Nadu about Agri-business, its importance and how to get into it. “It was a crash course of 15 days which enlightened me for going into Agriculture business and about varieties of crops and also I came to know about ‘Stevia,” he recalls.
After returning to his hometown, Pankaj explored many places and crops. With this journey of exploration, he learned a lot about Stevia and its benefits. By this initiation, his journey of Stevia started. And in 2009, he officially began his business in Stevia cultivation and growing. But at first, it was just farming the plant, then gradually, it became recognizable and grew into marketing, selling, distribution, and buyback. It has become a part of his international company ‘Wubitu Eco International.’
Triumphing Traits
According to him, he believes his clients, colleagues, and employees admire many professional qualities and values in him the most. His experience in sales has been a great advantage for him in the business field. Through this work, he experienced many dealings with many clients. After getting into business, he could understand the client’s basic needs to a good extent.
With his employees, the trust he puts in them and the belief in their capabilities is what they admire in him the most. “I share my problems and small happiness with my employees and colleagues, which makes them grateful and connect personally,” he says.
Another thing he mentioned is that in his entire career, he made sure to maintain his punctuality. He tries his best every time to be on time in every dealing and meeting with the clients, which has made every project successful.
The Saviour Stevia
Further briefing about the USPs of his firm, Pankaj says the basic component of his industry is the community of farmers working here. He ensures all the payments are sent to them on time, as promised. “By this, we have much availability of raw materials; these abundant amounts of raw materials have helped me and my company to reach a high position in the market in recent years.”
Secondly, since their product is health-related, it has gained more awareness. Right after COVID, people have become more conscious about their health, and the rate of diabetes patients has grown to an extent. Stevia has become a saviour for many people as it’s a medicinal herb.
Then thirdly, the ingredients ratio of their products is under the minimum range or as much as it is required to be. His team has been doing awareness schemes all over colleges and universities and conducting many more healthcare camps. By this, the product became much more recognizable to many people. “And more importantly, we have tried to make our products fully organically grown as our north-east is best for it, and we’ve also made the farmers working in different states practice organic farming for Stevia cultivation,” he states.
Farmers – The Real Treasures of India
According to Pankaj, the Indian economy depends mainly on Agriculture for around 80% of its share. Because India’s one of treasures is its farmers. “We work with farmers and also work for their upliftment. All our products are agriculture and health sector based. And currently, these two are one of the essential factors for India. And It’s undoubtedly important to work for the upliftment of these sectors, from which we can work on exporting because Agriculture export can be easily done outside India. By this, our farmers, too, can grow economically. By these aspects, our products stand out in today’s economy.”
Being an experienced leader, sharing his opinion on adopting modern technologies, Pankaj says their company trained farmers to use modern technologies in fields like ploughing, Cutting, drying, Packaging, making organic fertilizer etc.
However, it remains the biggest challenge they have faced with the farmers. The farmers still are unable to experience the new technology for cultivating. The literacy rate of the farmers is unduly less. Many still can’t get over the traditional methods and try the latest technology for betterment and upliftment. Many still have no idea of the new farming technologies and easy ways of production; neither do they trust these.
Agro-Empowerment
So the amount and speed of production sometimes get lessened. “Our team are doing their level best in putting forward the new techniques essential for the production organically and are spreading more awareness about it to the farmers. Our product and concept still haven’t spread as much as they should to more people in other parts of India. But it is spreading gradually and will be more in coming years.”
In his advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into organic farming and agro-industry, Pankaj says in his perspective turning agriculture into agri-business opens a very vast scope for the new generation.
After COVID, many youngsters tried to associate with Pankaj to work in it, and he taught them about agri-business and showed them the path to making the capabilities of agro-entrepreneur. “I have involved them in branding our products and advised them the basic qualities and mindset needed to produce the organically grown items.”
Many of them have begun their journey in agro-entrepreneurship and have gained a useful source of income through it. He has also inculcated in them a love for farming and how it can help build up the country in the upcoming years.
The Secrets to Become a Powerful Business Leader
He wishes to see them as future powerful business leaders with important qualities/traits honed. He believes that to be a powerful business, there are many vivid qualities which are required. “I’m still practising them along with learning more every day. In my opinion, in my experience in business till now, a powerful business leader must have a big vision.”
Secondly, it is important to be practical enough in business to handle any situation. Thirdly, the most prominent factor for a business leader is to value time. Doing everything on time can take a person too high to achieve success. Trust in the team and employees is a major quality one must possess.
