Thirty Years of Agribusiness with Venkata Subbarao Kolli

Agribusiness Matters with Venky Ramachandran

Subbarao looks back at his illustrious thirty-plus-year career to reflect (in hindsight) on what has changed and what has not in the Indian agri-inputs market landscape.

In this extremely personal conversation with opinionated agribusiness insights that stem from first principles, Subbarao talks of

• How reading “Social Impact of Computers” changed his mind about the role of technology and how he fell in love with genetics and plant breeding.

• How doing a Ph.D. gave him an edge in the world of agribusiness and the struggles of doing molecular biology in India during the eighties.

• His early days when he joined the seed production business during the eighties and nineties and his early work on GM Mustard.

• What have been the most significant shifts he has seen over the last thirty years in the Indian agri-input market landscape and what he perceives as the gap between “shift” and “transformation” in the Indian agri-inputs market landscape

• His perspectives on Value Selling, the role of Push vs. Pull, and what never changes in the fundamental social relations of farmers in the market.

• Whether Digital Distributors can substitute Distributors in the agri-input channel landscape.

• The Cycle of Consolidation and Deconsolidation among the leading agri-input players

• How the Culture of Big 6 Agri-Input Players have dictated their particular strengths and gameplays

• What was the original idea behind setting up Plowlab ventures?

• How to make sense of the perennial problems that bedevil Indian Agriculture and why is it important to separate man-made problems from nature-driven problems?