My guest today is Dr Dilip Kulkarni, President of JAIN Irrigation Systems, an Indian multinational and one of the world’s leading irrigation companies with factories in 30 countries. Dilip and his team at JAIN have pioneered a productivity revolution through modern irrigation systems and innovative technologies in order to achieve significant increases in ‘crop per drop’ of water for more than 6 million small farmers. They’re an early pioneer of the ‘Internet of Things’ and are leading efforts to create global solutions through precision agriculture. 

Dilip started his career as a lecturer of food technology in Nepal and has taught and consulted in Denmark, Indonesia, Mauritius and China. He is an expert on technology transfer and extension for farmers and entrepreneurs and participates in various committees working on agriculture and food technology issues.

I spoke face-to-face with Dilip in Delhi, India.

We talk about serving the needs of the world’s poor, especially farmers, by starting with helping them make more money before trying to sell them anything. We talk about the logic of going well beyond core business to diversifying around the needs of poor farmers to become a trusted ‘one stop shop’ to them. We talk about making the transition from professor of agricultural technology to President of a multinational, and how his trans-disciplinary knowledge has helped informed the company strategy. Above all, we talk about the exciting opportunities in agriculture for young people. 

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