While Kashmir is known world over for its natural beauty, the hospitality and warmth of relationships of Kashmiris is beyond compare. Being born and brought up in Kashmir, it was natural for me to bear these traits. Going to each other’s place without any prior notice is very common.
It all started with an incident last year when I had the opportunity of visiting a small farmer’s home in Anantnag Kashmir. His warm hospitality and simple nature didn’t allow me to leave his place without having some food with him.
Taste of this food took me down memory lane to my childhood when we used to have food that was unprocessed, without any fertilizers, chemicals or additives.
On leaving his place, I could see that this poor little farmer had worry writ large on his face which he tried to hide with his beautiful smile.
On probing further, I was told that in spite of working so hard and changing various crops, he is hardly making his ends meet and has to go to nearby town daily as a labourer to earn some extra money to keep his home fire burning.
I met couple of other small time farmers/ beekeepers and plantation owners of his village too.
I realized that some of the common issues faced by all of them are: inaccessibility to right markets and compromised reach to imperfect markets for inputs/products, leading to smaller value realizations.
Sometimes their productivity increased, but they faced challenges in marketing the produce. They usually sold the produce at low prices just because they lack exposure to lucrative markets and do not know how to approach such markets.
Also there is always a lingering thought of uncertainty because of non-existent pre-determined sales and marketing channel.
We could do our bit by acting as a bridge between these small time farmers and growers and their consumers by delivering natural & genuine products to consumers and bringing in a small change to the lives of both.
And hence the idea of Poshtaé was born!
We at Waivin Health Foods (Poshtaé) are committed to supporting natural, sustainable agriculture, serving and protecting Mother Nature and delivering these genuine and natural delicacies of Kashmir to our consumers... from farm to table with no stops in between.
But, above all, we are committed to connecting small farmers, beekeepers and plantation owners from Kashmir to global market and get them to taste the fruit of their labour.
