AI Onion Sorter Helps Indian Farmers Cut Losses in 12 States

Kshitij Thakur couldn't save his family's farm, but he's helping thousands of others survive with a machine that does something surprisingly difficult: sort onions without bruising them.

For most farmers, the real struggle begins after harvest. Grading produce by hand is slow, inconsistent, and often unfair, turning good crops into rejected batches and lost income.

Thakur grew up watching his family lose money not because their crops failed, but because the selling system was broken. That memory stayed with him through years working in AI and automation, eventually pulling him back to agriculture with a new mission.

He teamed up with Rakesh Barai to ask why advanced technology hadn't reached the place farmers needed it most: the moments right after harvest. They started with onions, one of the trickiest crops to grade because they're delicate and wildly inconsistent.

The first machines failed. Some were too slow, others too rough, and software alone couldn't prevent damage. "No matter how smart the software was, if the onion got damaged, it was useless," Barai explains.

So they worked directly with farmers, learning from each failure. The machines gradually became faster, gentler, and more reliable through constant iteration and feedback.

Then came the breakthrough. The machine could finally sort onions accurately without bruising them, giving farmers consistent grading for the first time.

The Ripple Effect

With reliable grading came something even more valuable: trust. Farmers started getting fewer rejections and better prices because buyers could count on consistent quality.

What once took days of manual sorting now happens in hours. Losses dropped sharply, incomes improved, and farmers gained access to markets that previously felt out of reach.

Today, their company Agrograde operates over 70 units across 12 Indian states, from Maharashtra to Assam to Tamil Nadu. The machines grade 24,000 quintals daily of onions, potatoes, tomatoes, arecanut, and apples.

For Thakur, the numbers represent something deeper than business success. "I could not save my family's farm," he says. "But helping thousands of others survive and grow feels like fulfilling the promise I made to myself in my village."

A childhood loss transformed into technology that's reshaping how Indian farmers sell their harvest, one perfectly sorted onion at a time.