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Akshayakalpa founder Shashi Kumar breaks down how organic dairy farming turned into a profitable, full-time livelihood for hundreds of young farmers in Karnataka. In this Kannada interview, he explains why the average Akshayakalpa farmer is 32 while the average Indian farmer is 52 — and what it took to get there.
ಈ ಸಂಚಿಕೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಾವು ಅಕ್ಷಯಕಲ್ಪ ಆರ್ಗಾನಿಕ್ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯ ಸಂಸ್ಥಾಪಕ ಶಶಿಕುಮಾರ್ ಅವರೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮಾತನಾಡುತ್ತೇವೆ.
Shashi Kumar started with 27 friends from Wipro who put in their own savings, no dairy experience between them, and an idea that agriculture could be run as a real business rather than a charity case. On 11 February 2012 he stood in Krishna Rao Park in Bengaluru and sold his first 18 litres of milk to morning joggers. The company came close to bankruptcy roughly six times before a ₹5 crore investment in 2016 changed everything.
This conversation covers the parts of the story most agri-business interviews skip: the unit economics of a small dairy farm, why soil organic carbon matters more than fertiliser, how Akshayakalpa farms in the Tiptur belt pushed average coconut yields from 55 nuts per tree back up to 89, and why regenerative agriculture only works if you are patient enough to think in decades. Shashi also talks about running a company with no head office, no micromanagement and, in his words, a CEO with no power — plus honest lessons on fundraising, mentorship, distribution channels and the failures founders should expect from day one.
If you care about sustainable farming, organic milk, rural entrepreneurship or the future of food production in India, this is a conversation worth your time.
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About the guest: Shashi Kumar is the founder of Akshayakalpa Organic, one of India's best-known organic dairy companies. He left a corporate career to build a community-owned model of farming around Tiptur, Karnataka, where farmers own their land and their herds while Akshayakalpa handles training, inputs, quality systems and market access. Over 16 years he has built a network of young farmers earning a reliable monthly income from dairy, backed by measured improvements in soil health, yields and animal care. His work is one of the few documented examples of regenerative farming operating at commercial scale in India.
Get in touch with the guest:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shashi-kumar-ak/
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Chapters:
00:00:00 Trailer
00:01:24 Introduction
00:02:39 Where every cab driver in Bengaluru actually comes from
00:06:36 27 IT engineers who knew nothing about dairy — how Akshayakalpa began
00:17:05 11 Feb 2012: 18 litres of milk in a park, then nine brutal years
00:30:19 Our soil is dying: how 185 coconuts a tree became 55
00:44:36 Nandini kept us alive. So how is Akshayakalpa different?
00:48:23 Nobody funds the middle of agriculture — then Nithin Kamath emailed
01:01:28 Technology isn't an app: cows, soil, silage and surviving a drought
01:13:56 Why the milk costs more, and why the channel is irrelevant
01:20:11 "As CEO I have no power" — the company with no offices
01:27:15 Where the government is going wrong on agriculture
01:32:26 Advice to agri founders: selling costs more than making
01:41:22 The average Indian farmer is 52. Ours is 32
01:46:30 Films, books and ragi mudde
01:53:10 Closing thoughts
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