Summary

Shashi Kumar, founder of Akshayakalpa Organic, shares the story of 27 Wipro engineers who in 2010 pooled money to start India's first certified organic dairy farming company. Today Akshayakalpa works with 2,800 farmers across 7,800 acres, paying each an average of Rs 1.28 lakh/month — a 700 crore turnover company selling certified organic milk, ghee, curd, paneer, cheese, honey and mushrooms across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. Key innovations include farm-level chilling systems (2,800 units), methane gas units from cow dung, herd management via Stellabs tracking 30,000 cows, and a consumer subscription app enabling same-day farmer payments. The episode closes with Dhruv and Utsav discussing India's economy: PM Modi's world tour, Tata Electronics signing an MOU with ASML for an $11B semiconductor fab in Dholera, Gujarat targeting 50,000 wafers/month by late 2026.

Full Transcript

Dhruv Sharma: Happy Monday listeners, you're watching the 91st episode of the Offline Network and today Utsav and I are chatting with Shashi Kumar, who's the founder of a wonderful and interesting agribusiness called Akshay Kulp Organic. Shashi, welcome to the show.

Shashi Kumar (Akshayakalpa Organic): So the point was, I think 27 crazy people you can assume, way back in 2010 even startup was a very alien and also agriculture itself was a startup in an agriculture space is alien. We have been discussing, okay, how to go back to villages, work with farmers and groom them to be entrepreneurs and set up right examples. For example, if you take me as an example, born in a farming family, why did I become an engineer? Okay, my father is still a farmer. Basically, my father never wanted me to be a farmer. So he made me an engineer. So what we thought was going back to villages and getting young people into farming, one way is demonstrating that farming is amazingly remunerative. Young people can get into farming like how my father saw a good engineer in Bangalore. We wanted to see in every village to have a very good farmer so that people can, okay, look up to them.

Shashi Kumar (Akshayakalpa Organic): Today, Akshay Kalpa farms are some of the most technologically advanced farms anywhere else you see in India or throughout the world. Two acres, three acres, five acre farms. We have integrated technology, the best possible technology where we can objectively collect data and make decisions for farmers. Farmer incurred zero cost for this.

Shashi Kumar (Akshayakalpa Organic): We work with 2,800 farmers, okay. And at an average, each farmer earns at a 128,000 rupees a month. Last financial year, at an average, we paid 128,000 rupees to each farmer. Average landholding is three acres. Akshaya Kalpa is a 700 crore turnover company, okay. Right now, we do around 60 crores a month sales in three cities, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, expanded to Mumbai and Pune recently.

Shashi Kumar (Akshayakalpa Organic): See, one fundamental, if you take milk as an example, immediately after milking, before you start chilling, it is 7 to 8 to 10 hours it is time in India, conventional systems. We have done it. Okay. 2800 chilling systems we have integrated in each individual farm. That actually preserves the quality of milk at the peakest possible. Immediately after milking, milk is chilled to 4 degrees. Second technological aspect, especially farm level innovation is, it is possible, any farm you, okay, commission that cow dung, you can actually convert into methane gas. Okay, 2800 units we have deployed. Every farm is, the moment you commission, methane gas production has become mandatory.

Shashi Kumar (Akshayakalpa Organic): We started doing this one in 2016, you know, okay, we put our app there, okay, make sure consumers subscribe to milk and pay in advance. That's how we could pay our farmers in advance. Same day we do settlements to farmers, first time in the country.

Utsav Somani: All right, Dhruv. A couple of talking points. So, PM Modi is on a world tour right now. So, he signed or helped Tata Electronics signed an MOU with the ASMR, which is the Dutch company that effectively owns the global chip lithography market. The asset in discussion is a commercial 300 mm semiconductor fab, which is almost near completion, by the way. It is an $11 billion project in Dholera, Gujarat. The target capacity is 50,000 wafers per month, and they are targeting late 2026 for production.

Dhruv Sharma: So, this is a very, very consequential company, Utsav. And, you know, you could you might call it the crown jewel of the Netherlands, their entire industry, their, you know, their export basket, essentially. They do have a monopoly on this technology called EUV, where you use extreme ultraviolet light to do what's called photolithography. These very advanced chips are like miniature skyscrapers, which is to say that they have hundreds of layers and billions of transistors.

Utsav Somani: And we'll see you on Friday. Cheers.