Devi Prasad Rao and Arohana Dairy attended the 2012 Unreasonable Institute. If you want to read more and connect with him click here to see his Unreasonable Profile.
I wanted to do something that was socially meaningful
Devi Prasad Rao: Devi says he has always had an entrepreneurial streak. “The desire to create something that will outlive me & create greater social impact has been burning inside me.” He took the plunge in a series of minor steps, first quitting his job at a respected private sector bank in India to join his client of 11 years as their CFO. This was seen as a major departure from the regular career graph of an ambitious banker. A year later, he stumbled upon an opening in an MFI that did livelihood linked financing. “As my heart-strings tugged me away to remote locales, I knew I was home.” With every livelihood financing product, ‘concept selling’ was needed – except dairying. The overwhelming response fascinated his. The product’s subsequent failure within 6 months convinced Devi that a radically new approach, centered around the small & marginal woman farmer, not milk nor even profit & loss statements, was required. And Arohana was born.
Arohana Dairy:Arohana means the ascending scales in music. Arohana creates highly productive dairy clusters by aggregating small women farmers and creating an ecosystem of support to help them grow. Arohana follows a simple, four layered process:
- – More milk per cow
- – More cows per farmer
- – More farmers per village
- – More villages per cluster
Arohana is a for-profit, social business that uses dairying as a fulcrum for rural rejuvenation and growth. We introduce small & marginal dairy farmers to commercial dairy farming, providing them with:
- -A fair price for milk in predictable payment cycles
- -Constant counseling
- -Animal feed and feed supplements
- -Guidance on growing fodder and boosting profitability of their farms
- -Access to cattle loans
- -Assistance in cattle purchase
- -Small farm automation, which would otherwise be unaffordable for the farmer
- -Access to ethno-veterinary medicine (called EVM) free of cost. EVM empowers the farmers to render basic first aid and treat their animals using ingredients available in any Indian kitchen. This cuts their dependence on veterinary expenses
- -Free access to veterinary doctors
The desire to create something that will outlive me & create greater social impact has been burning inside me