Samunnati’s Intervention for Swarna Bhoomi

Based in Tamil Nadu, Association for Sarva Seva Farms [ASSEFA] is a 50-year-old Sarvodaya organisation that has successfully served the rural poor in the state. Equipped with its own dairy plant, ASSEFA connects with over 3 lakh women who are members of Self-Help Groups and Joint Liability Groups. The main occupations of these members are agriculture and animal husbandry. Samunnati has been working with ASSEFA to provide them with financial assistance, market linkages, and advisory services.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, the Swarna Bhoomi Foundation was founded in the year 2000. A non-profit organization, it has been eliminating classroom hunger right from the elementary level at schools by implementing the mid-day meal scheme. Swarna Bhoomi aims at countering malnutrition and supporting the Right to Education of socio-economically disadvantaged children. Moreover, today, it is the world’s largest not-for-profit organization that serves wholesome food every school day to over 1.7 million school children from 14,314 schools across 12 states in India.

Currently, Swarna Bhoomi serves 20 lakh children in Karnataka with 3 canteens – 2 in Bangalore and 1 in Bellary. It serves wholesome and nutritious meals that meet WHO standards – comprising milk, curd, and egg during lunch. While the two outlets in Bangalore serve the south & central zones, Bellary functions in the northern belt of Karnataka.

Having heard about Swarna Bhoomi’s work and their requirements for agri-produce, Samunnati reached out to explore market linkage opportunities with the community-based organisations it works with. Swarna Bhoomi was interested in partnering with ASSEFA through Samunnati for procuring milk and curd for its meal scheme in Karnataka.

In addition to providing market linkages, Samunnati also provided receivable financing support to ASSEFA, thereby ensuring the farmer members received payments without any delays. Backed by the financial support from Samunnati, ASSEFA supplied 6,000 litres of curd and 600 litres of milk as the first consignment to Bangalore. ASSEFA also supplied to the second centre at Bellary in quick succession. ASSEFA got a contract from Swarna Bhoomi for supplying of milk and curd, thus improving the livelihood of farmers.

Samunnati stands for the concept of building quality and sustainable businesses, thereby ensuring inclusive growth. Samunnati believes that this linkage helps enhance the livelihoods of the farmer members of ASSEFA while supporting a noble cause being undertaken by Swarna Bhoomi.