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.

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........

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