Akshayakalpa

Akshayakalpa was registered on October 2, 2010. However, the Genesis of Akshayakalpa dates to the years 2001 to 2009, where the Youva Chethna program led by Dr. G.N.S. Reddy from Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF) encouraged like-minded people from urban areas to contribute in cash and kind to train young people and women in need in rural regions to take up agriculture/farming as a vocation of choice.

Nine Techies, including Akshayakalpa co-founder Shashi Kumar and his friends Venkatesh Seshasayee, Ranjith Mukundan, Ravishankar Shiroor, Ramakrishna Adukuri, Praveen Nale, Giridhar Bhat, Ramkumar Iyer and Mohammed Ashraf, then working with Wipro Technologies, were some of the earliest contributors to the Youva Chethana Program.[1]

The idea of young people being trained to take up agriculture/farming as a vocation of choice was transformed into idea of rural entrepreneurship model under Akshayakalpa in the year 2010, when the above-mentioned techies seed funded Akshayakalpa in November the same year. The initiative was also crowdfunded by several other employees of Wipro Technologies.[2]

The founding team was known to defy corruption, which is rampant in Indian bureaucracy and refused to pay bribes at various levels while seeking clearances and licenses to begin operations. [3]

Akshayakalpa was born as a farmer entrepreneurship initiative. The organization aims to address the bilateral problem of economic non viability in agriculture which entails farmers to either move away from farming or resort to means like chemical fertilizers and pesticides and poor-quality food for the consumer.  The team identifies young farmers who have discontinued farming operations due to economic non viability and grooms them to relocate back to farming by providing bank linkages, farmers outreach and technical services and access to markets. Akshayakalpa handholds the farmer on a continuous basis and ensures economic viability of the farming operations.  

Today, the company is working with farmers in and around Tiptur, Karnataka and Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu, and grooming them to be entrepreneurs by transforming their farming operations from livelihood focused to wealth creation opportunity.

Akshayakalpa works with farmers to set up small organic dairy farms that are owned and looked after by farmer families. The farms are optimally automated and self-sustaining.  

Each farm invests Rs. 25 lakhs, financed by Akshayakalpa partner banks, which is utilized to build the farms. The farms are made up of twenty-five cows, automatic milking systems, a biogas plant, a bio-digester, fodder choppers and a chilling unit among other facilities that enhance productivity.[4][5]

After a research of over a year, Akshayakalpa came up with the ideal size for a dairy farm – twenty-five cows. “Less than 25 cows won’t give the required output to gain profit after investing, and it is not possible to give personal attention to each cow if there are more than twenty-five cows,” says the CEO and co-founder Shashi Kumar.

Inducting farmers to the Akshayakalpa model is a rigorous process and takes anywhere between 18 to 24 months. The farmers are groomed on various aspects like maintaining soil without chemicals, closed loop soil management, raising cows without the use of antibiotics or growth hormones.

The company has stringent guidelines regarding the maintenance of the farms and the cattle. The cows are mainly fed on green fodder grown without chemical inputs. No hormones are injected, or oil cakes fed to boost milk production. The animals receive a regular check-up from doctors trained in ethnoveterinary practices to ensure that they are healthy and produce milk free from antibiotics and growth hormones.

All the farms associated with Akshayakalpa have the same design. The company ensures clean and stress-free housing for the animals. They are airy, steel-roofed sheds, with rubber mats on cemented floor for animal comfort. The cows and calves are stall-fed but not tethered. They are free to graze on a dedicated paddock area. The emphasis is on cleanliness. The dung has to be promptly cleared.

The farmers are taught closed loop soil health management. The dung and urine are flushed into a biogas plant. The gas (methane) is used to operate a generator that produces power for eight hours in a day. This electricity is used to power the day-to-day activity on farms. Further, the slurry from the bio-gas plant is led to a bio-digester. The filtrate is pumped out through a sprinkler system to the farm. The cultivation is entirely organic, avoiding chemical fertilizers. [6]

The milking is done with machines that imitate the sucking of a calf. The milk is chilled immediately on site. Chilling the milk is mandatory at the farm level. The milk is chilled to 4 degree Celsius to ensure high quality. The system sends the data to the central server where it is analysed.  

The automation has significantly reduced manual labour and has made farm operations drudgery free. This is important for women who have to do household chores as well. It is also meant to persuade youth to stay in villages and take up agriculture as a vocation of choice.  

The company works with the goal of enabling rural entrepreneurship and wealth creation among farmers in and around Tiptur, Arsikere, Channarayapatna, Chikkanayakana Halli, Kadur and Holenarasipura.