You can never grow a single crop organically,” is a line often delivered with certainty. Shashi Kumar has spent the last two decades proving why that certainty is misplaced.
Born into a farming family, Shashi was advised by his father to stay away from agriculture, a livelihood seen as uncertain and unforgiving. He instead pursued engineering and built a successful 17-year career in the IT industry. Yet the pull of the soil never faded.

In 2004, while still working full-time in the technology sector, Shashi began experimenting with organic farming on a small plot in Ramanagara, exploring what exactly is organic. This led to the realization that chemical fertilizers and pesticides, while providing immediate nutrition to crops, end up killing all the microorganisms in the soil, including beneficial ones, and over time deplete the soil’s ability to support vegetation, rendering it unfit for farming.

With this learning emerged a regenerative farming practice that transformed his barren land into a thriving ecosystem of crops, microbes, and living soil. During this phase, his wife Shilpa was instrumental in turning theory into practice by managing the day-to-day operations. Their farm became living proof that organic farming could be both sustainable and regenerative.

In 2009, Shashi partnered with veterinary scientist Dr. G. N. S. Reddy, connecting the dots between soil health, cow well-being, and milk quality – laying the foundation for the farmer-first ecosystem model that defines Akshayakalpa Organic today. For Shashi, regenerative farming is about restoring dignity to agriculture, preserving soil for future generations, and proving that caring for the land is not a compromise, but the only way forward.