This Mysuru Man Left Tech To Build a Dairy Paying Women Farmers 40% Above Market Rates

When Kamalesh Mandya thinks about growing up in Neelamane, a village 30 km from Mysuru, he does not begin with school or festivals. He begins with cows.

Advertisment

Add The Better India As A Trusted Source

His grandmother and great-grandmother owned eight to ten of them. Every morning, milk was measured and sent to the local cooperative. Butter was churned and sold to families nearby. The earnings kept the household running and allowed the women to make their own financial decisions. For a young Kamalesh, it meant toys, small treats, and a sense that the women in his family stood on their own feet.

Over time, that certainty began to slip.

Input costs rose steadily. The price of milk did not. Feeding and maintaining cattle became harder each year. One by one, the cows were sold. What had once sustained the household became difficult to sustain. Watching that shift left a mark on him.

He did not know the solution yet. But he knew he wanted to return to the village and try.

From engineering to the village

Kamalesh was the first in his family to attend college. He completed his BE in civil engineering from Mandya and later earned an MTech from BMS College, Bengaluru, on a scholarship. For some time, he taught at Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering.

In 2016–17, he cleared the Karnataka Public Service Commission examination. It offered stability and a clear career path. But accepting the role required paying a bribe. So, he chose not to.

That decision brought him back to Neelamane.

“I wanted to try dairy farming in a different way to create more impact and better livelihood opportunities in the village. Dairy farming puts money in the hands of women. It is the women who take care of cows in villages,” he says.

In mid-2022, he incorporated The Farming Buddha. By 2023, operations had begun. Today, the enterprise supplies milk to more than 300 families in Mysuru through monthly subscriptions and procures over 500 litres every day.

Earning the farmers’ trust

The first step was persuading someone to believe in the idea.

“It took us six months to convince our first farmer, Mangalamma, to give us milk. Farmers find it difficult to trust. But soon, by word of mouth, people came to know about the price we were paying her — 40 per cent more than the prevailing market price. Also, that we were making timely payments and guiding her in cattle health. Within two months, many farmers approached us. Now there are 150 farmers on the waiting list as we are planning to scale up,” he explains.

Mangalamma continues to supply milk.

Today, The Farming Buddha works with over 50 farmers, 38 of whom are women. For many of them, the difference lies not only in the price but in the consistency.

Mamatha, 32, from Ballenalli village, about 10 km from Neelamane, has been supplying milk for two years.

“My mother-in-law was in the dairy business for 15 years. I get Rs 15 more for a litre of milk than I was getting earlier. Also, I get regular payments now. It used to be very tough when payments were not regular,” she says.

The steady income has reshaped her plans. “I have two daughters, and the extra income has helped me pay their school and college fees. I have bought two more cows, now have three cows, from the additional income. It has also helped with household expenses as well as acquiring a smartphone and television. I also bought a second-hand two-wheeler for my older daughter,” she adds.

Beyond payments, the support extends to cattle care. When a cow falls ill, the enterprise helps arrange veterinary assistance. Regular training sessions are conducted in partnership with BAIF (Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation), where farmers learn about bovine nutrition and preventive health.

Tracing the milk from courtyard to city home

While working closely with farmers, Kamalesh also focused on what happens after milk leaves the village.

Adulteration and lack of transparency have long troubled dairy supply chains. He wanted consumers to know exactly where their milk came from and what happened to it along the way.

The Farming Buddha uses IoT-enabled systems to track milk from farm to doorstep. Each time milk changes hands, it is tested and recorded.

“We want to track the complete journey of milk. If anything goes wrong, we can trace where it happened. We track the milk from farmers to our pick-up agents to bottling agents to the consumers. Whenever milk changes hands, the basic parameters are tested and recorded,” says Kamalesh.

Subscribers receive adulteration test results every morning through an integrated web platform.

“By combining source-level traceability, batch tracking, and routine quality checks, the system reduces opportunities for dilution, chemical additives, or post-collection tampering, which are common risks in informal dairy supply chains,” explains Mythri, who leads communication strategy at The Farming Buddha.

For Mysuru-based subscriber Matilda Gifford, this clarity carries emotional weight.

“When you are feeding a child, you are constantly worried about what is safe and what is not safe for health, especially with mass-produced food full of chemicals and additives available widely. Knowing that this milk comes from farmers and reaches us fresh on the same day without any plastic pouch gives me a deep sense of relief as a mother,” she says.

How the numbers work for farmers

The enterprise follows a decentralised approach. Milk travels no more than 30 km before reaching consumers. In contrast, larger dairies often move milk across distances of up to 300 km. Lower transport and cold-chain costs create room to pay farmers more.

The brand positions itself as mid-premium. A one-litre monthly subscription is priced at Rs 2199.

“We are a mid-premium brand. We charge Rs 18–20 more than Nandini. Compared to players who cater to the segment we do, we charge Rs 10–15 less,” says Kamalesh.

“The ethos of The Farming Buddha’s business model is to put money back into the hands of farmers, not use the money for the company’s own benefit,” adds Mythri.

The venture has achieved operational break-even and continues to build towards profitability.

Glass bottles, biogas, and local deliveries

The choices around sustainability mirror the focus on fairness.

Milk is delivered in reusable glass bottles. Over two years, this has prevented the use of 3 lakh plastic pouches that would otherwise end up in landfills. Since 2023, deliveries have been carried out using electric vehicles.

By-products such as cheese, paneer variants, set curd, butter, and ghee are produced using biogas generated from cow dung. “90 per cent of our fuel requirement to make the by-products is met by biogas. We do not use chemicals to set the curd like bigger dairies do,” says Kamalesh.

The slurry from the biogas system returns to farms as organic manure. Even the processing unit in Neelamane has been constructed using discarded building materials, reflecting his background in sustainable construction technology.

Expanding opportunities for women

As the enterprise grew, so did employment.

More than 70 per cent of its 17 employees are women. At the Neelamane processing unit, only two employees are male. Some of the women who work there are also dairy farmers supplying milk.

On November 14, 2025, the team launched Women’s Coffee Company in Mysuru, a café run entirely by women.

“The café is in the nascent stage. We are learning and experimenting. We wanted to provide a livelihood to women living in and around Mysuru. Since we were already in the milk business, we thought of offering them coffee. One of our B2B clients, to whom we have been supplying from day one, makes very good coffee. He trained our team. He also pitched in and helped in curating the menu,” says Kamalesh.

The menu features aam vade (raw mango fritters), masala vade (spiced lentil fritters), and madhur vade (sweet fritters). On Sankranti, the café began serving breakfast items such as tamarind rice, coconut rice, and sweets like kajjaya (sweet fritters) and payasa (sweet pudding).

“Kamalesh’s motivation is to help rural people. Also, his focus is on women. The café, which was set up recently, is entirely run by women. The additional income the dairy farmers receive is useful in various ways. How the money is utilised determines the social impact,” says Ved Arya of The Buddha Institute.

Recognition and the road ahead

Along the way, the enterprise received recognition as the winner of TIDE 2.0 under the Central Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs programme. It was also selected as a winner under ELEVATE Karnataka, a state initiative promoting entrepreneurship and innovation.

Kamalesh credits IIM Bangalore’s NSRCEL for early support and mentorship.

“We would not be where we are if not for IIM Bangalore’s NSRCEL. It means a lot to us. However big we grow, we will be thankful to IIM Bangalore, and they will be close to our hearts. Even though we graduated around two years ago, the NSRCEL team still keeps in touch to check how we are doing and offers help. Going to IIM Bangalore is like going home,” he says.

The next steps remain rooted in Mysuru. Plans include expanding into healthy food basket subscriptions with country chicken eggs and vegetables, and supplying chakli (spiral savoury snack) and kodbele (ring-shaped savoury snack) prepared hygienically by nearby homes.

For Kamalesh, the work still circles back to that childhood memory.

“The Farming Buddha uses technology to bridge the gap between the rural and urban worlds. Knowing and navigating both worlds is a beautiful thing,” he says.

And in that space between village courtyards and city homes, milk now carries more than nourishment. It carries income, dignity, and continuity for the women who care for the cows.