Gurpal Sokhal

Agriculture professional with over six years of experience across crop advisory, integrated pest and disease management, farmer training, and rural development programmes in Punjab and Haryana, India. Proven track record leading district-level implementation of sustainable food-system solutions, building multi-sectoral partnerships (FPOs, District Collectors, district institutions), and delivering technology-enabled, farmer-centric advisory services across agri-tech platforms.

District Food System & INRM Expert (District Co-ordinator) - FAO-GEF 7 FOLUR Project - Punjab, India

(2025-11)

• Lead district-level implementation of sustainable solutions across the food value chain.
• Conduct stakeholder consultations and contextual analysis to identify partnerships across agriculture, logistics, and allied sectors.
• Coordinate with District Collectors, FPOs, and district institutions to enable multi-sectoral convergence.
• Provide technical leadership, ensure quality assurance, and mobilize expertise as required.
• Represent the project in district and state-level meetings and forums.
• Support preparation and implementation of District Annual Work Plans and Budgets (D-AWP/B).
• Implement monitoring, evaluation, and reporting systems to track project outputs and outcomes.
• Facilitate capacity building, gender mainstreaming, and social inclusion of marginalized communities.
• Conduct regular field visits to monitor progress and support effective implementation.

Product Delivery Manager - Reliance Foundation - Punjab, India

(2023-11 - 2025-11)

• Addressed farmer meetings and conducted needs assessments to understand challenges in achieving improved yield and adoption of improved practices.
• Enrolled additional new users and updated user profiles; supported baseline surveys.
• Built networks and partnerships with knowledge and grassroots partners, leveraging their expertise, services, training capacities, schemes, and user networks.
• Developed locally customized and situationally responsive interventions to improve yield and management practices.
• Implemented programmes aligned with annual operating plans, ensuring cost-effective, innovative, and outcome-driven delivery.
• Managed farmer queries through multiple helpline channels (toll-free, YouTube, WhatsApp).
• Documented and analysed queries by theme and region, feeding insights to the programme delivery team to improve execution and content.
• Supported surveys for specific interventions and carried out various special assignments.

Junior Agronomist - Agri Kheti - Mohali, India

(2023-05 - 2023-11)

• Worked with data scientists on artificial intelligence applications for crop protection.
• Reviewed crop manuals, crop care data, and the harvester planner.
• Prepared the monthly notification calendar.
• Supported senior management in planning and carrying out daily operations to meet key objectives.
• Scheduled weekly projects, anticipating timelines for milestones and completion dates.
• Trained and supported less experienced staff in managing workloads and assignments.
• Prepared and conducted farmer interviews for research purposes.
• Undertook various survey and data-collection activities, including classification and directional surveys.

Agro Advisor - Agri Kheti - Mohali, India

(2021-04 - 2023-05)

• Segregated disease/insect/deficiency images sourced from field officers and open-source data scientists.
• Resolved farmer queries across field crops, vegetables, fruit crops, and pulses.
• Sent seasonal notifications to farmers.
• Produced digital disease/insect bulletins for social media.
• Worked on crop protection (chemical and organic).
• Conducted regular farmer field visits and addressed farmer meetings, including video calls with premium farmers.
• Held weekly encouragement sessions with field officers and monitored farmers enrolled in organic farming trials.
• Delivered live sessions on Facebook and YouTube addressing crop-related problems.
• Created and updated crop manuals, crop care data, and the harvester planner on the Agri Kheti app.

Farmer Tele Advisor - Plantix GmbH - Mohali, India

(2019-08 - 2020-10)

• Processed and corrected farmer data.
• Verified dealers via CCA calls to PACS, retailers, and distributors supplying agricultural inputs.
• Delivered crop protection advisory / Plantix farmer advisory using Zoho CRM and Google Sheets.

M.Sc. - Fruit Science - Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo (2017 - 2020)

B.Sc. - Agriculture (Hons.) - Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo (2013 - 2017)