Samunnati: Collective Growth & Collective Prosperity

would need to change to practice what they preach. I'm your host Time Autigue, and I've spent over a decade helping companies defind what they stand for their purpose and then help them to use that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. In this special episode, we're sharing a positive case study where we talk with the CEO of a purpose led company who we think is getting it right. Today,

I'm speaking with a Neil Kumar, CEO of Samunati. He shares how humble beginnings eventually led him to refinance his home in order to start what would become India's largest agricultural enterprise. Farming is a notoriously difficult profession, high risk and often low reward. Harvests are subject to unpredictable factors like climate and weather and access to capital tends to be limited, and for families who grow and sell crops on a small scale, known as smallholder farmers, things get

even more daunting. Their size prevents them from buying equipment in bulk, and when you're paying retail prices for seeds and fertilizer, machinery and pesticides, things add up fast. Most don't even grow enough to make their money back. In India, a lot of people are familiar with this struggle. Agriculture supports roughly two thirds of the one point six billion person population, and the majority of the growers are tenant farmers, meaning they don't even own the land they work on.

You think it's hard to get a mortgage in the United States, try getting a loan for a new tractor as a tenant farmer in India, banks won't even consider you unless you own land, so many farmers buy supplies on credit, further raising their overall operating costs and squeezing

their margins even more. To complicate matters further, often farmers are unbanked, which means even if they do receive a loan, they get the whole lump sum in cash, and when life happens, the money is used for other household needs. A lot of them wind up owing money that they can't pay back. This economic struggle for farmers can become overwhelming. In India saw an average of twenty eight farmer suicides a day. But one company is working to change this

system from the inside, India's largest agritec enterprise, Samonati. Their purpose is to create better markets for smallholder farmers across every state in India. They began pursuing this purpose in six by issuing loans designed specifically for small farmers, but they soon realized they needed to be more involved to make a lasting impact. Today, the company acts as an intermediary between everyone in the agricultural ecosystem, banks, seed suppliers,

old sailers, and small farmers. Getting this all done is complicated, so Samonati takes a three pronged approach. First, they focus on aggregation. They facilitate the formation of farmer producer organizations f pos or co ops, where individual farmers with similar needs can use collective bargaining power to access better prices and better markets. Currently, Salmonatti has four thousand fp os in their network, each made up of roughly three to

five hundred individual farmers. Second, they facilitate market linkages, connecting farmers directly with the markets that will give them the highest prices or market share. They also lend farmers the money they need to get things done, offering multiple types of loans, all structured with farming households in mind. And third, they offer advisory services, helping their customers transition to more sustainable methods, create business plans and implement standard operating procedures.

They call their strategy OMLA A m l A, and it's highly effective. Today, Samonati is valued at north of a billion dollars and has touched the lives of seven million farmers and counting. Their current goal is to impact one in every four farmers across the entire country by seven The mastermind behind this organization is my guest today,

Samonati CEO Anil Kumar. He tells us how they weave the needs of farmers directly into the fabric of everything they do and emphasizes the importance of leading with heart. A link to the transcript of the conversation you're about to hear is in our show notes or can also be found at Calling Bullshit podcast dot com. More with a Neil Kumar. Right after the break, Folks, I am very excited to introduce the founder and CEO of Samunari, Anil Kumar. An thank you for being here and welcome

to calling Bullshit. Thank you, Tie. It's my privilege as well to be part of this program. So let's start right at the beginning. Can you talk a little bit about where you're from and what your life was like growing up in India. Well, I'm a you know, I'm a small town boy, so to say. I'm born in a place called Kolar, which is known for its gold fields, and brought up in places that are close by called

Anantapur and Bari. Both belong to two different states. So bad is part of Karnataka and natur is part of and So what that meant for me is I grew up in a confluence of two different languages. Both became integral to my growing up. So schooling happened there and then I joined mechanical engineering as an eighteen year old boy. And during my plus two holidays, I had taken the Banking Services Recruitment Board exam and I was selected to

a government bank called Canada Bank. So I I joined Kendra Bank as typist come clerk in a rural branch of Kenadra Bank, and that's how my baptism into banking happened in the rural and agree space. Little did I realize what all would manifest over the next thirty years of my life in banking. But that's how my journey started as a professional. And just just to draw a

line under something, because I found this very inspiring. You come from very beginnings and you've come very for being the CEO of, you know, an extremely successful organization today. So I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about what your experience was like growing up in a lower middle class Indian family. Well, we are a family of six. I have three elder siblings, all sisters, and as a professional, my father used to learn quite handsomely.

But when I was eight, he lost his job and the family crashed landed, so to say, on the economic ladder. And that's when my mother took over the charge of the house and then she started building the entire family from the scratch. So I got to learn a lot in this transition of building rebuilding, so to say. Because

people around us we're all doing well. They were all neighbors when we were doing well, but you know, when we were not doing well, my mother stitched the entire ecosystem to support our family through engagement with the community, her engagement with the neighbors. So I realized what is social capital. Each of our sisters started working when they

turned eighteen. But the entire family was spinning their hopes on me because I was the only male child in the family and they wanted me to know to redeem the entire family. It was tough. There were days that I still remember where we did not have even a penny at home and I made it a point to record that day in my head. And so then it sounds like you made your way into the banking business with a focus on agricultural banking or banking for the

agricultural industry. Is that correct? Actually? No, I I was posted in a rural branch, which meant it is agriculture and rural. But I was a typist come cluck, you know, and and banks in India usually post youngsters in rural areas. So it is my good fortune that my baptism to bank thing happened in an area that would become so

relevant to my journey. I have an instinct that because of your background and because of your experience working in banking in a rural environment, you have an empathy for small family farmers in a way you know the word, You understand them and their lives better than a typical banking person would. Would you agree with that absolutely? In fact, one of the reasons why this entire space looks so home natural for me is because I have been there.

I have lived that life of challenges from access to markets and challenges that the external environment presents you on which you have you have no control on. I have lived that for about thirteen years of my you know, my life, from the age of seven to about eighteen eleven years. Okay, So for listen orso who might be unfamiliar with the agriculture industry in India, can you just paint a picture of what that industry looks like. What

are the major challenges that Indian farmers face today? Well, on the statistics diamension Tai, agriculture constitutes about twenty percent of the country's GDP right while about sixty of the population is either directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture, which means there is a vast majority of population dependent on agriculture in that a significant portion is small holder farmers

and farmers who are owning less than two hectares of land. Uh. And there is another large majority of people who take land on lease and our tenant farmers. So if you combine the tenant farmers and you know smallholder farmers, that

construts about the total total farmers into farming. AH. Majority of formal financial institutions are still not in the reach for these smallholder farmers on account of not being able to fulfill the criteria that the smallholder farmers are supposed to for accessing the farmal financial institutions are The definition of a farmer is the one who owns land, not necessarily the one who does farming, and this requirement of

an ownership has fostered the fragmentation further. UH. Say, if my father had nine hectares of land and we are three brothers, for for me to avail of a loan from a farmal financial institution, the land has to be in my name, which means my father has to split this into three and give me the three hectares. And if I happened, if I happen to have another three boys, I will have to split that into three. So within two generals shells, the nine hectors will become one hector.

Right second, from a sector perspective, agriculture is a huge sector. You know, it's it's massive in terms of scale and scope. So let us look at what are the major categories in agriculture. And now you have inputs as a category where everything that goes into cultivation as a process. This includes the seats, includes crop protection chemicals, and it includes

the farm equipment. Now you have the output where the post harvest services happen, whether it is sale our store and sell, our store, process and sell what what have you. Then you have financial services for this. Then you have the advisory services. Then you have the research institutions. Now if you look at each of them, each of these categories are massive. Again, you know, the inputs have seeds

double click on CITs. Then you have you know, the genetically modified hybrid seats, then open pollinated seats and you then double click on them. You have individual companies around that. Right now. On the crop protection chemicals, you have fertilizers which facilitate the growth, and you have you know, pesticides and herbicides which kill They both are again two different categories. You don't have the same company which works on both

sides and double click on that. Then you have individual manufacturers for each of these products fum equipment, you have minor farm equipment and major you know, major ones like tractor and the treasure and these kinds of things. There are two different entities. You know, you have to click on that again. All of these tie would want to reach out to these smallholder farmer on their own, and the smallholder farmer has less than two hectors of land.

How they engaged. Now you know that was what inspired us to get into this collectivization which I will talk later. But the context is smallholder farmer not being able to engage with the ecosystem on on the on the dimension of strength, but on the dimension of being at the receiving end. Right, So very fragmented, very agmented. The market

is fragmented, landholding is fragmented. Each of these. Again, when a farmer goes to buy their inputs, they have to go to the retail most part of the value chain because that's what he can afford or she can afford. So the manufacturer, dealer, distributor retailer is where the farmer would go and when they buy their small quantities, that price is loaded of all the layers of the product moving into the farmer, provided the farmer has cash. If it is on credit, then the cost of credit also

gets loaded on it. M hm. Now then what happens soon after harvest? Most of these farmers, on account of being smallholder farmers don't have the capability are infrastructure to to take the produce two larger markets to sell, because you need to have a threshold volume of commodity right because the cost of transportation would kill if you have a small quantum and you have to hire a large truck.

So the local large farmers are local aggregators, would basically buy out the produce from the farmers they aggregate and then they take it to the next market to sell, which means there is hardly any scope for primary processing our storage because they need liquidity immediately. So if you just combine these two dimensions, I think farmer is the only person who buys retail sales sales whole sale. Yeah, I think that's a great insight, which is like the

entire margin is squeezed. Yeah, yeah, very tough. You hardly get anything for your for your output. So so let's let's pivot then to to Samonati and again just for listeners benefit, what does the name Samonati mean? Samon Nati is a Sanskrit word. It's a combination of two words, you know, samma and nati. Sama is collective, all encompassing everyone. Unnati is growth, prosperity and elevation. So the word someone that he meets collective growth, collective prosperity, and collective elevation.

It's a great name. So I'd love to hear the story of what made you decide to start it and a little bit about what seminari does. So first I'll tell you what someone that doesn't then come to you on how how happened? Because it happened accepually, I would

say someone that is a value chain enabler. It's an open agree network in the agree value chain space, engaging with the entire spectrum of agriculture players, starting from the input manufacturers to the farmer collectives, to the farmers, to the output aggregators all the way to the large processes.

You know, we are present in the entire value chain with the principal expectation and division that how do we make markets work for smallholder farmers Because in the narrative that I gave you of how the markets are fragmented, most of these markets are working off the farmer. Can we change the narrative and bring in a dimension of making markets work for smallholder farmers? Right? The levers that we believe would facilitate this journey are one, increasing the

throughput in the agree value chains. And also how do we bring in the dimension of making the smallholder farmer access the larger agree ecosystem and making the agree ecosystem access the last mile through a digital connector that someone that this building in. So there are three filters that we look at in terms of how do we engage

with the players in the agriculture ecosystem. One is the vision of making markets work on smallholder farmers by making the agreevolity chains operate at higher equiligreeument increasing the throughput with all the players, which also means we work with everyone right and then thereby harmonized the engagement between the

farmer and the agree ecosystem. Right, these are the three things that we are working towards, and at this point in time, we are present in about twenty three states in the country on the FPO gateway that we have of which is the entry point for all the farmer collectives which you are referred to as FPOs. We have about four thousand such apos and an FPO could you could you unpack that for us? What is an fpopo is a farmer producer organization. It's like a cooperative, it's

like a collective right. It is member owned, member operated, and about you know, three to five farmers come together to be part of an FPO, to be of a farmer collective. Now, that is where they unlock their collective bargaining power right, and that unlocking of collective bargaining power is how we engage with them in a framework that we referred to as ARMA approach Aggregation, market linkage and Advisory services and ARMLA is also Tai is also Indian gooseberry.

It is the only fruit which has all the six days, including tart. That's very interesting, so we look at it is when a set of people doing the same economic activity come together, their requirements are homogeneous. Their requirements are similar. If a hundred sugarcane farmers come together, their requirements are similar. When three D patty growing farmers come together, their requirements are similar in terms of what they need to buy and what side services they need to access. Now, this

aggregation is meaningful only when there are market linkages. Right at the moment you bring in market linkages, two things would come into picture. One, your local retailer may not have the kind of quantity that you require at an aggregated level, and hence as a FPU, as a collective, you may want to go one or two steps above, right, which also means that the cost of your procurement would come down, because now you are you are jumping to

three levels above. But it also means is you need to have access to liquidity because in the retail most part, when you went as an individual farmer, you had that social capital to take inputs on credit. But now in in in the aggregated one, you are not an entity that is known. You are not an individual, it is a collective on hence you will not be able to get this inputs on credit. You have to put cash

on the table. Right. This is another example I think of of just real empathy, right that a farm family is a family, not just a farmer. And so the way that the loans were structured in the past. I think you you refer to something called a bullet loan that a traditional bank would make to a farmer, and there was downside to that form of of loan. I wonder if you could just explain that like sort of the way that you changed the way money is being

made available to smallholder farmers. So there are two ways of engaging with the smallholder farmer. One is actor, which is the household in the farmer and the actor the farming right in in agriculture, the actor and activity are intertwined. You know, there are two sides of the same coin. Yes, and you cannot dealnk yourself from the actor and engage only in the activity because it's a household enterprise. The

entire household is engaged in the activity. So the way most of the traditional lending models focus on is hey, I would look at your activity in isolation and structure alone are a financial product to not to deliver for the activity, and the actor will have to manage, you know, the actor's cash flows that household to suit the activities requirements. Now and two these are smaller loans and there is also the providers opics that comes into picture in terms

of how do I engage on this product. If you take farming as an activity, the way cash flows accrew are you invest invest invest are best right? In other words, you put smaller moneys over a period and you get the entire written when you harvest. So the best way to engage in a financial structure for that is, you know, you disperse, disperse, disburse, and ask for repayment. Right, that would mean multiple disbursements for a smaller loan, which means

more opects on the provider side. So what providers usually do are used to do now technologies helping them to structure it differently is to give you know, the entire money in one go and expect these smallholder farmers to keep aside the money and keep using it at regular intervals for the activities, so that the providers opex does not get inflated on account of multiple transactions for a

small loan. But what happens in reality is given the multiple demands on the corpus, it gets consumed for something else you know, some other family need, right okay, And and it usually results in either they're compromising on one or two steps in the cultivation, are going for higher cost liquidity options. Yes, take care of those one or two dimensions in cultivation, both of which have a negative impact on the income because if you compromise on one

or two steps in the cultivation you were, ield gets reduced. Sure, you know, you you take higher cost borrowing, then you have to repay that and your income gets reduced to that extent. Right, So the best way to engage is engage with the actor as a household and then provide multiple requirements. And the household also requests insurance. The household

also requires, you know, liquidity support during cultivation. The household also requires uh, you know, other other financial products otherwise reservices on and so forth. So you saw this problem and other problems like it, and obviously you saw some kind of an opportunity. But I just love to hear made you decide to make the leap, because becoming an entrepreneur is non trivial decision in one's career. I realized the enormity of it now, but when the addition was made,

it felt natural. I have never done farming, but the way I took to agriculture was like fish taken to order. So on a light or not, I keep telling, maybe I would have been a cow buffalo in my previous life. That's why it's so natural. Or maybe I would have been a farmer if I can be gentle to myself. Very funny. So you know from Canada Bank, I moved to a bank and continue my studies and then within a bank. In two thousands four, I took a sabbatical

went to Money lad to do my master's. Is when I got inspired by the financial inclusion and Dr Mohammed Uns's life and then I thought, hey, I have got so much of exposure. God has been kind to give this exposure of the rural and agree to me, why why don't I do something in agriculture. Is what made me to get into the Rural micro banking and re

business group of iss A Bank. Two years and I is a bank and then the bank deput a new initiative called I f M a trust and I was given the responsibility of setting up a local financial institution model which designed and deployed an in depth engagement with

a household. So this actor dimension the household dimension and as part of that engagement with the household through a branch let approach, we used to do the asset liability income expenditure of the household in a scientific manner, in a structure that is called wealth management approach for low income households because usually wealth management is associated with people who have who are wealthy, right, but one decision going wrong in the life of a low income household would

would would be a disaster, right, so it is much more critical for them to manage their wealth. And hence we as providers should have a framework of managing their wealth because a two D expenditure could be a rounding of error for a wealthy individual, but this could be a life changing when they could push them into party back to poverty. So that that is a kind of understanding of the household that we did for about seven

and a half years. Whereas a group CEO, we had set up about two branches, We had about eleven hundred people in this initiative. We had one point a million insurance policies. All of that the facult of this initiative, I started realizing that while an in depth understanding of the household is important, the household is not operating in vacuum. The household is operating in an ecosystem, and that ecosystem is dependent on one or two major agree value change.

So if you have to engage with the household in a constructive manner, you have to go one or two levels above because a volatality of that value chain would have an impact on the household household incomes because their intertwined that there is a positive correlation between both of them. Right is when the idea of someone that they as a value and enabled to germinated. That's the idea came in.

And then I said, why not I take a leap of faith because I have had the benefit of setting up an entity from scratch, understanding the space, and my wife permitted me to take the entrepreneurial plunge. So I took a loan on my house and my entire provident money from my previous employer and someone that they started as as a as a journey as an entitive. As you rightly said, now I feel how did it make such a big leap of faith? But at that point

in time time it felt natural. If natural, that's great. So when you talk about samonati and its purpose, how do you talk about it? How do you artaiculate the purpose of samonati? So there are two dimensions of how you know, we engage while the core purpose remains markets working for smallholder farmers. That is the you know, the

reason for our existence. So we thought, while our goal is to impact smallholder farmers, the way to achieve it is through the value and so we engage with agree enterprises. We engage with the processors, We engage with the small time dealers, distributors, we engage all the way with multinational

procurement agencies. Everyone. We are working with the entire value chain, and hence you also see in our in our numbers and balance sheet, there is a significant portion that is with the agree enterprises, not to the smallholder farmers, not with their collectives. But that that is the you know, that is the highway that we are building so that we bring the demand side of the value chain towards the supply side. Right, and how old is the company? When did you found it? It was founded in two

November is when we started our journey. We got our first investor in two thousand fifteen. So once we started lending, that happened in May two sixteen, So I would say scaled operations happened from May two sixteen onwards, and within one and a half years of that we realized that in agriculture the best way to engage with the players is by being an internal player, by being a partner,

not just being a lender on the fringes. An internal in the valuation is embedded in the activity, you know, is part of the highs and lows of what happens in the value. An external player in the valuation is someone who is sitting on the fringes, on the edges and takes collateral and property as as security to protect, but is not part of the activity per se. Yes. So we also looked at the entire informal markets in agriculture.

Most of them are internal players. The ones who are lending in agriculture were actually ones who are part of the agree ecosystem. So that's when we got into market linkages and set up someone at Thiago as a subsidiary. Within one and a half years and customers were talking about market linkage as being equally important, if not less, you know, in addition to the financial services. Finance is important, but not sufficient. Finance is a lubricant, it can facilitate

things happen. It cannot be the end. It is a means right. Market linkages are much more critical. Very interesting. Yeah, and can you describe the dimensions of the business today? How big have you grown so far? So between both these engines, we have done about one point seven billion dollars of put you know, finances, about sixty of it is the commerce side, and the aspiration is how do we take it to about fifteen billion dollars in the

next five years. Wow, that's incredible. What we're also looking at is in these four thousand far more collectives that we work with on the FBO gate where they're collective membership is in the range of about seven mill and smallholder Farmers has about hundred million smallholder families, So how can we touch one every four farming families in the next five years is the goal that we are pursuing, so that we are about this cohort, this universe and touching does not mean we lend to them or buy

from them because at a collective level time we also engage in their institution building. We do their digitization, we build their teams, we train them on the business activity. We we also conduct training programs for the CEOs, We bring in the spies for the risk and audit framework. All all these are not charged we do it from two dimensions. Because one dimension is as a lender, I am as strong as my borrower. Right, if the borrower is strong, is when I get my money back. Second,

I can only grow if my partner is strong. So by building capability in them as an institution, they're able to grow, gets accentuate it, and hence I will grow with them. Yes, which is what collective growth is, which is what someone that is. Yeah. When I hear you say those words, they sound extremely obvious, but it's also if you look around the business world, how rarely those

words are practiced in business. It makes me reflect that if we could foster more of that kind of thinking in business, particularly in the States, the better off people would be. Because you know, in and I know you know this, in traditional capitalism, it's very I guess the phrase here would be dog eat dog, or there are winners and losers, And this idea of building an ecosystem where there is collective success is very rarely practiced, I

would say in traditional capitalism. It's it's perhaps also a dimension of the sector where we are operating. You know, agriculture is humongously large, uh humorously large that we don't need to compete and Diffe can just borrow the phrase it's it's like a blue ocean. You know, you are insignificant as a player in relation to the potential of the sector. So I keep saying, even after five years someone at from a quantum perspective, fifteen billion is still

a rounding of error. That's why we also engage with large number of AGREE startups and ecosystem players, because there

is so much to do. Collectively, we work with about three to four hundred startups in the AGREE space in terms of being their lender, you know, in terms of giving our distribution network to them for their proof of concept and then structuring their product for our customers, whether it is quality of saying, or whether it is storage, or whether it is drone monitoring or satellite imagery, what

have you. Yes, collaborate and collaborate. And so in the States, my observation would be there used to be many, many small family farms here also, and we took a very different path. It appears that we decided to actually aggregate at the ownership level. And so there are these giant agriculture businesses, these giant industrial farming operations in the States, and I guess. I have a couple of questions underneath that observation. One is why has that not happened in India?

In other words, it feels to me like you got to the market just in time to make sure that that actually and your focus on helping small family farmers go it alone and continue to be independent has been a real aspect of your success. But has there been a movement to aggregate farmers to buy out, buy up all the farmers in India? The dimension of collectivization has been around for centuries in India. Yeah. Uh, the forms

have changed, but the principle of collectivization has remained. I agree with you on the timing part, because a lot of things are coming together. One is the dimension of technology. India is a large country with a huge population and the majority of them remote and infrastructure was a challenge.

Now you see last last you know, ten years, the amount of development that has happened on the physical infrastructure like roads and rails and transportation, on the communication infrastructure in terms of the optic fiber and the wireless, and most importantly the entire smartphone dimension, where the tools that are required to bring markets and people closer are available. Now number one, right now number two. We stumbled into this space in two thou fifteen accidentally, uh, you know,

into this FPO space collectivization. You know, in two thousand nine in the government made an announcement of setting up additional ten thousand new collectives as an initiative, and that gave a shot in the arm for the entire ecosystem. Everybody started looking at how do we participate in this dimension. So the entire policy framework and the policy environment has has got a huge filip in the last ten years. Uh. And and one of the things that we are also

witnessing here is the entrepreneurial energy. Many youngsters are now taking up to agree startups and acted companies, and the entire startup world is abus with youngsters trying out and every other day a unicorn germinating from this lot. Then there is a lot that is happening, which was not the case, you know about thirty years ago when when I was a youngster at that point in time, it was like you study to get a job, and you settled down in a job and you don't take risk.

The entire dimension on masslows Hiderar cafinets is basic and safe. Nobody looked at self actualization and eco center. The the millennials are not that, you know, they are ready to explore, They're ready to take risk. So many things coming together for the Indian agriculture to unlock the potential. And given the compounded annual growth rate that we are witnessing, agriculture would be a trillion dollar dimension in India in the next five years. Imagine that that would be fantastic too.

From a food deficit nation as late as you know, the late sixties, now India is actually export and the largest producer of several lugury products. You know, we are a surplus nation which also exports to many countries. And ily believe that we can work with many smaller countries which don't have landmarks to cultivate, you know, for their food security. India can play that role. Okay, So there is a lot that is coming together that there is

a confluence of technology, private capital flowing. In mind you not all is being funded by grants and donations, you know, they are private capitain flowing and entrepreneurial spirit backing the capital and fusion. Mhm. It's this wave that's very inspiring and I hope we can learn a bit from the Indian culture of cooperation and collaboration and also of your

success at Samonardi here and apply some of that. How do you think about climate change and the potential effects of that on both the smallholder farmer and on your business. So it's it's up very important aspect that we cannot ignore anymore. It is moving from I would say an important bucket to the gent bucket. Uh something that needs attention.

And one of my my key takeaways when I started working very closely with farmers is they are aware of what is sustainable agriculture time, but how can you and hold the transition from traditional farming methods which are not climate resilient. Are climate smart right? Fertilizers and pesticides pesticide also you know flood irrigation to rep irrigation, you know choices of crops mono crop to multiple crops. All of

that there is awareness. What they don't have is the hand holding because the vulnerability of a failure would mean losing one season, that would mean in a family starving, so food on the table to retaining that piece of land for the next generation. The choice is obvious. So the way someone at the end. You know, some of us who have been part of this journey believe is we have to convert this awareness into an action by hand holding them and providing a safety net to them

for the fall. We have to bring in the dimension of insurance. We have to bring in the dimension of market linkages and the forward linkages in the agreegence so that the farmer can can confidently walk and say has taken baby steps in that. You know, we started working with Rubber Bank on a guarantee program along with the sc I D and U s DFC on climate smart agriculture and agro forestry where they provide a guarantee and we provide the market linkages and finance. Of our overall engagement.

So far in this one point five billion has been climate smart complainant assets. We also have issued green bonds now and the idea is how can we bring in the dimension of green and that again is a category. The moment you unwrapped that you have prevention of food laws as one, efficient use of energy as the second one, and responsible usage of pesticides and fertilizers are chemicals to retain the vitality of the soil, will retain the vitality is an aspiration, but how do we infuse life into

the soil? Yes, and we have a dedicated team of about fifteen people working exclusively on that. So it's it's not a good to have debate anymore. Climate patterns have changed, the rainfall patterns have changed, so we need to address it, agreed. So I want to pivot and just talk a little bit about you as a leader and hopefully share some of your wisdom for entrepreneurs or other CEOs of even

nonpurpose led businesses who are beginning that transition. So all purpose led businesses tend to have or consider the needs of many more stakeholders than shareholders alone. And one of the things that I wondered about is how do you think about all of the stakeholders that you are serving at at Seminardi as the leader, and do any of

those stakeholders needs ever come into conflict? Right? So I don't know if I have an advice for the new entrepreneurs, but all that I would say is I can share my journey how how that has been being led by heart has been a hallmark of my journey so far.

When I look back, you know, as I mentioned the decision of setting up someone that by taking a loan on my house and my proud and front money at the age of forty two did not appear to be a crazy decision because everybody were surprised that somebody is looking at lending to agriculture, because lending in agriculture was considered to be an oxymoron. Uh. And then going back to my own life, you know, leaving a government job

and joining a private sector organization. When I was doing well, I left there and went to college because I never had a college life. I was a school dropout, then from college dropout, coming back and then being a founder of you know, financial inclusion initiative called Life and a Trust. And when I was a group CEO, leaving that and setting up someone that I think there is there is one significant factor that enabled this journey, which is the

investment that I made in myself. I got into a system of meditation when I was twenty one that was stumbled into a system called artfulness, which is a twenty five minute investment that I made every day in meditating on myself. In terms of how do I build my life? You know, it was not about how do I become rich? It was not about how do I compete with others

at the cost of you know, others. This investment for about thirty years now has helped me immensely to decide things based on what the heart says, not what the mind says, Because if I had done some financial calculation and analysis, you know, no, no one would want to risk the entire family, you know well, So one thing that I certainly would tell the fellow entrepreneurs is when you are a purpose led business, it is important that you are anchored inside and that it's important to have

an investment in yourself so that you make right choices on the stakeholders dimension. We have been fortunate to have an aligned set of people all through, starting from Leva, which believed in in the story of agriculture, and not because somebody spoke to them. They have invested in two thousand and twelves. They actually went around seeing agriculture and the pharma collectivization and two fifteen when I spoke about collectivization, it was not new to them and they knew the

space and why this has so much of potential. So an investor who understands the impact spaces an important dimension. You know, we got axcel, We've got responsibility, We've got moving in all of them, fundamentally interested in impact from a scale dimension with the customer and ambiguously being the one that we have to work with. UH are not two different vehicles saying, hey, you do business but also take care of impact. No, you are in the business

of impact. Impact defined us. Who is your customer segment? Who do you work with? When that is clearly defined, the scale happens because the primary customer segment that you are working with is the same for our customers. You know that the way we engage with our smallholder farmers in their collective. We don't directly work with them. We work always with their collective. We don't take collaterals and

we don't believe in collaterals when engaging with them. There is a lot of the commitment to them is when you are united, we are committed with you. So light or not. I keep telling people that how do you lend? We say no, we believe, look into the land and then pray right. Well, it seems to have worked out so far. It seems to have worked out so far. The cost of risk in our business is about two

that's has come back so prayers do work. But on on a serious note, the risk management philosophy and someone that is, how do you address the risks of the customers? Yes, when their risk is addressed is when my risk is addressed. And the risk of not having the institution capability to handle the business is a risk to me, So how do I address the business? So the risk management philosophy for us is manage the risk of your client, and hence your risk is automatically managed. So that's how we

engage with the stakeholders. We have a wonderful team at someone about seven people, you know, all aligned to the purpose. So every meeting that we have, whether it is a smaller important meeting or a town hall on zoom these days, with all seven hundred people, we start with what we call as a connection. We offer a you know, a minute prayer, which basically says, all of us pray that whatever we discuss, whatever we do, we do for the

larger good of the humanity. That is a ritual, nothing to do with any particular form of eight, religion or cast. Those reiterations help us ground it. I love that answer, and it also gives me a little view into the culture seminary, which I appreciate. Do you think that being purpose led as a as a for profit business means that you have to have more modest financial goals as

a business? Actually no, if you see the the audocity with which we are talking about numbers, I believe the purpose let business has to be more aspirational and bold in thinking than being driven by Excel sheets and numbers. If purpose let businesses apply logic, then we don't go anywhere. The purpose let business have to be have to be driven by passion and passion My view is not is not limited by numbers. That's that's a beautiful answer. I

love it. Okay, So my last question for you today sadly because I'm so enjoying this conversation, but but I realized that you have a business to run in a life to lead, So I calling BS. On this show, we define b S as the gap between word indeed, and we have a tool called the B S Scale where we rate organizations zero being the best zero BS and on being the worst total BS. And taking into consideration the fact that no business is perfect right, every

business is on a journey. Where would you rate samin Atty on that scale? Today? I I would hazard, I guess I would say about thirty. We have covered significant distance in terms of what do we have to pursue. That is direction. Then there is scale that we have demonstrated. The TV is in place, that the tools that we have to impact on place. But it is still a

journey and this is a moving post. You know, after years, if we talk and I would still say, we are still about thirty, right, so that aspiration would have changed because we are looking at farmer as an actor. I would say in activity we have we are zero, but you know, still the household needs to be impacted, so I will still have about that. I would say about Yeah, you may be even being a little hard on yourself, which is totally totally fine, but you've certainly proven the

model and it's incredibly impressive what you've achieved. So thank you for being on the show today and thank you for the work that you're doing. Um, it has been a pleasure to spend time with you. Thank you. It has been my privilege to have interacted with you and shared my journey. Thank you for the opportunity. Alright, folks, it's time to give Samonari a PS score. The company's purpose impacts millions of people in a positive way. Samonati

looks beyond their immediate customers. They exist to change the entire agricultural ecosystem, which makes things better for everyone. It's an enormous job, full of ambition, and the vast scale of their aspiration is evident in the score of thirty that a Neil gave himself. That score shows just how much more potential he feels there is yet to fulfill.

But I think a lower score is fairer in this case, not because there isn't upside for Samonati, but because I think their words aligned so well with their deeds that they just deserve a better score. So I'm going to cut a Neil score in half and give Samonati an extremely impressive fifteen. And if you're starting a purpose led business, or if you're thinking about beginning the journey of transformation to become one, here are rethings you can take away

from this episode. One, lead with your heart. Empathy and understanding for all of your stakeholders is a key aspect of building a successful purpose led business. Empathy doesn't appear in a lot of NBA programs, and it's hard to find in a spreadsheet, and yet it is the secret sauce that is driving the success of conscious capitalism. Two.

Pick a problem you understand and really care about. A Nil's humble beginnings in India gave him a unique perspective on the plight of smallholder farmers, one that traditional bankers couldn't see or understand. Your personal experiences and struggles are where you may find your own purpose led unicorn. Three. It's not a zero sum game. The best purpose led businesses don't create winners and losers. They create win win win scenarios in which a complex web of stakeholders improve

each other's lives and finances. They create Samonati, you know, collective progress. I want to thank our guest today a Neil Kumar, the team at Samonati and the team at l of Our Equity for helping to make this episode possible. And if today's episode inspired you to lift up our ecosystem, subscribe to the Calling Bullshit podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to people speaking to your ears and friends. I'd like to ask

for your help. If you enjoy the Calling Bullshit Podcast, take a second to rate us on Apple podcasts or on your preferred platform. It helps more listeners find the show and thanks to our production team Hannah Beal, Amanda Ginsburg, Ds, Moss Hailey, Pascalites, Parker Silzer and Basil Soaper. Calling Bullshit was created by Co Collective and is hosted by Me Tai Mounting you. Thanks for listening. H