Mallika & Subbaiah Farm

The story behind Mallika & Subbaiah Farm

Subbaiah farms land his grandfather cleared, in one of the driest districts in Andhra Pradesh. Anantapur gets under 600 mm of rain in a good year, and for three generations the family did what everyone around them did: groundnut, every season, on every acre. Monoculture is a reasonable bet until it is not. The soil thins, the pest pressure compounds, and a single bad monsoon takes the entire year with it. We started working together in 2019 on nine of his fourteen hectares, moving them off continuous groundnut and into rotation. It is slower to establish and it took two seasons before the yields justified themselves. What it bought him was resilience: when one crop struggles now, the others carry the year. His groundnut is still the best on our list. It just is not the only thing his land does any more. The land here is dryland, with annual rainfall under 600mm, so every choice the family makes matters. Three generations have farmed this soil, and the youngest is now trying biochar and short-rotation cover crops.

We work with them on a five-year offtake agreement, at a price renegotiated every year against an open cost-of-production formula. When wholesale prices rise, we share the gain. When the monsoon fails, we share the bridge financing.