Milk Mantra, SBI sign MoU for Growth of Dairy Farmers

Driven by the mantra of ‘happy farmers = happy cows = pure milk’, Odisha’s fastest growing dairy brand Milk Mantra today has taken a step ahead to empower its network farmers by signing a landmark MoU with the India’s largest bank, The State Bank of India (SBI) at the bank’s main branch at Bhubaneswar.

The Company in a bilateral agreement with the bank today has entered into the understanding of facilitating easy loans to its network farmers through SBI to empower the farmers and explore quality dairying opportunities in the state as part of its innovative Ethical Milk Sourcing Programme.

Starting from scratch, Milk Mantra now has more than 30,000 network farmers and through its structured Ethical Milk Sourcing programme, it has been facilitating several extension services to farmers to improve dairy development in Odisha – cattle loans, health camps, AI services, cattle feed etc.

With a significant presence in Puri, Cuttack & Jagatsinghpur districts, Milk Mantra has recently forayed in to Western Odisha and is building its farmer network in Bargarh & Sambalpur. The company has already disbursed around Rs. 1.5 Cr. to its netwok farmers and is seeing the effect of sustainable income generation and dairy development in its clusters – ensuring financial growth as well as a steady, fair & transparent partnership.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Krishna Mohan Trivedi, Chief General Manager, State Bank of India stated, “I am happy to see the pro-activeness and clear intent of the Company’s management towards the financial empowerment of its network farmers. It shows their seriousness towards sustainable growth of farmers, which ultimately helps in ensuring quality & purity of milk” This is a mutually beneficial agreement. He further added, the bank is hopeful of enjoying association of millions of rural small and micro level self-employed clients through this agreement.

Mr. Srikumar Misra, Founder &Managing Director of Milk Mantra said, “Starting with 10 farmers and 25 liters of milk collection in 2011, Milk Mantra now has around 30,000 network farmers. We feel proud that we are one of the few dairy companies in India that have provided extension services to our farmers from day one of our operations – without getting any support from any instution.

This has resulted in dairy development in the state and has interested the farmers greatly; all this will go a long way in ensuring Odisha’s unrealized potential in healthy dairying”. “With a strong associate like SBI joining us, we are confident that there will be a sustainable impact on the rural ecosystem of Odisha”, stated Mr. Ashit Mahapatra, COO of the Company.