Have any of us wondered what happens to our food waste? Or where farmers get good quality manure from? Or the life cycle of the all-important, life-giving, nourishing food we eat? That’s what suddenly struck Ranjini Prabhakaran and her husband Kern Agarwal one day. Both bankers, they always felt the need to eat good-quality food and stay healthy, and so just started urban farming one fine day! This was terrace farming at Loyola College in Chennai, and the food produce was sold to the nearby apartments.
“Taking this idea further, we started proper farming on fields about eight years ago,” explains Prabhakaran. “We started teaching farmers about organic farming so that there was longevity, soil fertility and sustainability. However, there was one particular challenge – the lack of manure. We realised that whatever we eat usually comes from the villages to the cities. What goes back to the villages in physical form? Of course, money goes, but what goes back otherwise? What is supposed to go back is vegetable waste and market food waste that is supposed to re-enter the soil as fertilizer. But here in the city it ends up being solid waste or sewage waste.”
Since the duo was into organic farming, they knew how to make compost out of waste. “We started thinking somehow the waste in the cities should come back to the farmers as manure. That is how we started Carbon Loops, where we scientifically process the market waste and take it back to the farmers.”
Loyola College gave Carbon Loops the opportunity to set up their biogas plant in 2017, to process food waste from the five canteens there. “We process the food waste and give that as cooking gas back to the canteen. The slurry from the biogas is mixed with the garden area waste of Loyola College and converted into high-quality compost, and this is sent back to the farmers. Thus, we create a closed loop.” They realized that there would be great potential to run this as a business, replicating the model wherever possible.
Since the inception of their first plant, they set up another at Stella Maris College in Chennai, and have a few more plants across Tamil Nadu – totally 8. They also maintain the R&D Facility of Mahindra City, which processes 10 tonnes of food waste and converts them into CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). Around 1000kg of CNG have been produced for Mahindra world city, which is being researched to be used for buses and tractors. Excluding Mahindra World City, they have altogether 10,000 metric tonnes of food waste and given away about 500 metric tonnes of compost to farmers.
“As a farmer I would want to say please don’t waste food,” says Prabhakaran. “As an entrepreneur, I would tell women out there to pursue whatever they love. It will take time, there will definitely be challenges, but it will work. Don’t limit yourself. Women are already very multi-skilled. A lot of us manage family, careers and other obligations. When I see women around me who want to do something but don’t do it, it is usually because they limit themselves from stepping out of their comfort zones. Sometimes, it is also the fear that they shouldn’t sidestep their other priorities. Just tart something if you really want to and take one step at a time.”