Chief Growth Officer, Shunya Agritech

“Milk is the most democratic food in India.”

It sits in every kitchen — from the smallest mud hut to the tallest Gurgaon high-rise. It powers chai, childhood, and commerce.

It is a source of complete protein, it is the source of high quality fat. It is versatile and manifests in various high nutrition formats – from milk to flavoured milk to cure to lassi. From milk powder to Whey supplement. It is the most acceptable form of nutrition across India and the world!

And yet, for the people who produce it — India’s 80 million dairy farmers — milk is rarely democratic in outcome.

Some earn ₹20/litre. Others ₹40. Some get paid for fat and SNF. Many don’t. Some have green fodder at their doorstep. Most don’t.

And when summer arrives? Everyone suffers.

The Silent Collapse of May

In rural Kanpur, May means heat. As temperatures soar perilously close to 48 degree Celsius, cattle start feeling the heat. They stop eating. If low on hydration, it compounds their discomfort and worsens their health. Milk output drops, often drastically. Fat% dives. On the other hand, feed supplements prices rise. In all of this, Farmer income collapses! And so does their spirit!

The system shrugs. Some sources up their procurement rates but its often minimal and doesn’t compensate the dairy farmer for the short-term loss in income and long-term loss of wealth.

But farmers “adjust”. They never stop working.

Consumers still get mil, on time, every morning. And stay oblivious to the struggle!

The cost to the farmer, to the cow, and to the quality remains invisible.

We, at Shunya Agritech have been helping farmers solves for the nutrition crisis and recover from below par productivity for the last 9 months. But this May, we sought a different answer.

What if the farmer didn’t have to adjust? What if better nutrition could hold the line?

For months we had been getting feedback on the impact of Shunya Nutri Ankurit Feed on milk productivity – quantity and quality. But was NAF standing the intense test of the May Heat!

So we sought the path of Science

Science – in which our NAF is rooted right from the selection of grain to the growth process. But this time we sought to answer the question of impact scientifically and “Doodh Darpan” was conceptualised

But we didn’t go into a lab. We went to six villages in Ghatampur Block, Kanpur Nagar.

• Tracked 16 buffaloes from smallholder households
• Measured over 650 milk sessions in extreme heat (May 2–25, 2025)
• Compared traditional feeding vs Shunya’s Nutri Ankurit Feed , a hydroponically grown, enzyme-rich green fodder
• Captured fat, SNF, volume, milk quantity for sale and daily earnings digitally along with spend on feed
• Recorded farmer narratives alongside data

And what did we see

The buffaloes on NAF held steady. Against the trend! Against conventional wisdom! Against the Scorching heat of May! Against 48°C heat.

Some even improved!!

Metric	Traditional Feed Group (Control)	NAF Group (Test)
Milk Quantity	Fell 15%	Flat (–2%)
Fat %	Flat	Improved 5%
SNF %	Marginal	Stable
Net Income	Dropped 25%	Grew 8%

*Net Income is Milk Revenue (–) Feed Cost

Most telling stat? The average income per animal per day:

• Control: ₹70 ➝ ₹52
• Test: ₹96 ➝ ₹104

Over 12 months, that’s a ₹18,000+ difference per buffalo. In a household with 3–4 animals, this is the gap between survival and stability.

So What’s the Real Story Here?

It’s not about milk. It’s about agency.

The ability to say:

I don’t need to wait for rain. I don’t need to overspend on concentrate. I can control something.

That “something” is feed.

And through feed, productivity, income, nutrition, and dignity.

You see: Nutri Ankurit Feed is not magical! It’s what cattle require as the minimum nutrition to influence milk. Something that they had free access to till about 10 years ago. Something that has become increasingly sparse and farmers have adapted in the most non-productive direction ever since. But that’s because no one has tried to do the difficult things to solve for nutrition. Everyone solved for easy access! And that just increased costs for a farmer and not his income. But he continued to adjust!

The gains that you see may be slightly exaggerated because a lot of animals evolved to eating a healthy diet. We all may have experienced the same sense of productivity increase if we were to move from a chips & soda diet to one of sprouts. Sprouts are healthy be it for humans or animals. But unlike us choosy humans, cattle devour sprouted grains!

What Does This Mean for the System?

If you’re a policymaker or co-operative
Milk incentives must include fat, SNF, and animal nutrition.
And you must be Investing in local green fodder infra to provide high quality nutrition at affordable prices

If you’re a social investor:
This is what climate resilience looks like; no irrigation, no subsidy, no chemicals. Just better design. This is how empowerment & improved livelihood manifests in the best way possible – for the ones who toil away for our comfort.

If you’re a farmer:
Every litre of milk is a function of what you feed. Not just which cow or buffalo you buy.

Why the Model Matters

The success of Shunya isn’t just with NAF as a product. It was access, reliability, and simplicity.

Shunya’s Fodder-as-a-Service model delivers NAF daily to farmers who need it. The ones with no land, no labour, no weather risk. Just trust and transparency. It’s nutrition as infrastructure. A logistics backbone for rural dairy health. A mirror (darpan) into what scalable, equitable agri-innovation should look like.

If we want to change India’s milk story, we don’t need more cows.

We need smarter systems that start from the ground up. Or in this case, from the feed tray forward.

Doodh Darpan showed us a uncomfortable reflection of what’s possible. The question is whether we, as an ecosystem, are willing to believe it.

To read & download the full data summary or partner on future Doodh Darpan studies, click here