Organic Mandya: Challenges in Scaling a Social Enterprise

The Organic Mandya (OM) case explores the journey of Madhu Chandan, a successful entrepreneur who gave up his comfortable life in the United States to return to his home state, Karnataka, in India and set up OM, a first-of-its-kind organic movement led by farmers in Mandya. Over the years leading up to his return to his roots, Chandan had observed certain disturbing trends such as increasing farmer suicides in Karnataka, the reduced life expectancy of the rural population, and large-scale migration of youth to cities for employment opportunities. He began to delve deeper to understand the problems faced by these farmers. He observed that the adoption of chemical farming in Mandya over the past few decades had led to an increase in lifestyle diseases and reduced life expectancy-a phenomenon hitherto unheard of within rural communities. OM was born out of Chandan's journey to change consumer and farmer behavior and encourage farmers to revert to traditional and more ecologically friendly farming practices. The case examines the challenges that Chandan encountered in convincing farmers to revert to sustainable farming practices, while simultaneously attempting to change the mindset of urban consumers by encouraging them to seek health-promoting, organically grown farm produce. This case will help students understand the traits that an entrepreneur driving a socially oriented business and led by a strong sense of purpose will need for success, as well as the challenges and opportunities in building a community-based enterprise. The case is set in August 2020, when Chandan was forced to reflect on the sustainability of OM's business model in the rapidly changing social context and increasing competition from big players. Consumer preference for online shopping for foodstuff was making it imperative for Chandan to continue to innovate OM's business model and to identify new opportunities to continue to stay relevant.

Learning Objectives

Understand the challenges in setting up a social enterprise in the agricultural sector. - Explore strategies that can be adopted to build agricultural value chains and rural market linkages. - Consider whether scale is necessary or possible in social enterprises, specifically in organic farming. - Identify sustainable growth models for a social enterprise, balancing the twin goals of profitability and social upliftment of farming communities, without compromising business ethics.