In the heart of Maharashtra, where the smell of onions fills the air and farming is not just work but a way of life, a young girl quietly watched her father lose half of his harvest every year. For Kalyani Shinde, this wasn’t just about lost crops; it was about witnessing years of labor wilt away, helplessly. Kalyani’s father, like millions of farmers in India, grew onions, a crop that feeds the country but often goes to waste. Nearly 40% of India’s 26 million tons of onions rot before reaching the people. That’s enough to feed 50 million Indians—lost every single year. But instead of turning away, Kalyani turned this personal pain into a powerful purpose.

India’s Onion Storage Crisis: A Hidden National Problem

The problem wasn’t the production. India grows more onions than it consumes. The real crisis was post-harvest loss. Stored in traditional godowns without modern monitoring, onions begin to spoil silently from within. Farmers often depended on their sense of smell to detect rot. But by the time the stench hit, half the harvest was already gone. This wasn’t just a family issue; it was a ₹40,000 crore national loss, repeated year after year. There had been talk, research, and policy suggestions. But what was missing was a ground-level solution—affordable, accessible, and effective.

From Engineering Student to Agri-Tech Pioneer

Kalyani was still a computer engineering student when she decided to take matters into her own hands. She didn’t wait to graduate. She didn’t wait for help. She just acted. She traveled to Lasalgaon, Asia’s biggest onion market, to understand the problem at its core. And then, using just ₹3 lakh in funding, she built India’s first IoT device to detect onion spoilage early. She named it Godaam Sense.

Godaam Sense: Simple Tech, Massive Impact

Godaam Sense is a small, smart device that sits in an onion godown but watches over it like a silent guardian. It tracks temperature and humidity in real time and gas emissions from early-stage spoilage. It sends alerts the moment 1% of the stock starts deteriorating. Instead of reacting after damage, farmers can now prevent it. This changes everything. Thanks to Godaam Sense, farmers are now saving 20–30% more onions—onions that used to rot before anyone knew they were in danger. What makes Kalyani’s story so powerful is its simplicity. She simply didn’t want to see her father suffer anymore. Her father had spent decades growing crops, watching helplessly as weather, storage, and time destroyed them. Kalyani wanted to protect that effort to ensure that at least what was harvested could be saved. In doing so, she built something that is now helping millions of farmers across India.

A New Era for Indian Agriculture

India’s agriculture often suffers not from lack of talent but from lack of technology at the grassroots level. Kalyani Shinde has shown how young minds with rural roots can bridge that gap. Her innovation brings together engineering and empathy, data and tradition, and, most importantly, technology and trust. With a single device, Kalyani has addressed one of the most expensive and overlooked problems in Indian farming—post-harvest losses. And she’s done it without fanfare, quietly but impactfully.

A Story That Needs to Be Told

Kalyani’s success isn’t just in the hardware she built. It lies in the mindset she represents, one that sees problems not as dead ends, but as starting points. She didn't have a big team. She didn't have a million-dollar grant. All she had was her father's pain, a little technical knowledge, and a deep desire to make a difference. She is proof that big change often starts in small villages and that heroism sometimes looks like a daughter solving a problem no one else would. In saving a few tonnes of onions, she may have saved an entire system. And in the process, she didn’t just make her father proud; she made all of India proud.