Oorja Development Solutions

Oorja is an award-winning social enterprise based in New Delhi with the parent company incorporated in the UK. They are on a mission to empower 1 million farmers globally by 2030 with the agricultural solutions they need to sustainably increase their income and quality of life.

Oorja is a Farming-as-a-Service company working at the intersection of sustainable agriculture and renewable energy. Their focus is on powering productive-use appliances that help users to generate stable incomes, create jobs, and mitigate carbon emissions. Despite urgent need, around 90% of marginal farmers cannot afford to invest in solar technology to meet energy needs on their farms. Oorja wants to close this gap. They finance, install and maintain decentralised solar energy infrastructure for community use. They use these assets to sell affordable and reliable solar irrigation and milling services on a pay-per-use basis to smallholder farmers, without any upfront cost to them. They also offer offline and digital advisory services to strengthen climate adaptation and resilience amongst farmers. Oorja operates in rural areas of northern India where farmers are currently reliant on polluting and expensive diesel motors for their energy needs and have ambitions to scale up our unique solution globally.

Their core strengths are their inclusive, farmer-centric business model and a diverse and driven team with a shared passion for sustainable development. Some of their investors and partners in this mission are Acumen Fund, Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia, elea, Echoing Green, Swiss Re Foundation and GIZ.

To find out more about Oorja, please visit www.oorjasolutions.org