Chennai: There are people who worry about the vanishing forests. And then there are people like Ranjith Kumar and Rajakamalesh who do their bit to restore the balance. Through their product, Farmcils, which are wooden pencils, they sow the seeds for a greener tomorrow.
This is how it works: the 100 per cent organic pencil comes with plant seeds at the bottom sealed in an organic capsule made of vegetable oil. Once you are done with writing with the pencil, you simply stick it in a pot on the ground and viola! Out comes a plant!
R & R Trading Company, based in Coimbatore, is promoted by two computer science engineering graduates, A Rajakamalesh and Ranjith Kumar (26), who wanted to do something innovative and yet be useful to society.
“Rajakamalesh and I started ‘Farmcils’ in 2015. We are engineering graduates who were not satisfied with what we were doing. We always wanted to do something innovative, creative and something that will benefit society,” says Ranjith.
Farmcil, the pencil, has different seeds at its end placed inside a capsule. The wood is totally natural and free from any toxins since children tend to put the pencil in their mouth while using it. No part has plastic in it. The pencil capsule holds vegetable or flower seeds.
In the vegetable category, they are from the tomato, brinjal, lady’s finger, chillie, cluster beans. Among the flowering varieties, it is verbena, zinnia, cockscomb, sunflower and balsam.
Talking about their switch to entrepreneurship, Ranjith adds, “Children are capable of bringing about change. Once we understood this, it set off a spark in us. We wondered why not start the action through pencils used by children.”
Apart from producing eco-friendly pencils, this project also empowers women. The quality of the pencil is checked and packed by housewives in and around Coimbatore. There are around 10 women involved in the process of packing the pencils.
“What is even more surprising is that the pencil decomposes within a month while other pencils take at least 3 to 5 months to decompose,” says Ranjith.
Talking about expansion of the business, he says that the company has a plan to introduce more seeds of different plants, and medicinal herbs that will be useful to a household.
“We manufacture more than one lakh pencils by cutting one tree. Each and every pencil becomes a tree in future. So, I can assure that one tree is going to give more than thousands of trees in future,” says Ranjith with pride.