This weekend our group made a trip to the Kerala coast.  Kerala is the next state over from Tamil Nadu, and is one of the wealthiest, most educated states in India, with a 99% literacy rate.  You can see the difference as soon as you cross the border.  It takes about 5-6 hours to drive to Kerala from Coimbatore - it's only 230k away, but the roads are pretty rough and packed full of cars, buses, rickshaws, ox carts, bicycles, pedestrians, cows, dogs, goats and anything else you can imagine.  After all the driving we've been doing for our interviews with the farmers, we've finally stopped covering our eyes every time we see a large vehicle barreling toward us head on...  but it's always an adventure ;)

Fort Cochin

Chinese fishing nets in Fort Cochin

We rented a great villa in Fort Cochin, the old town within Cochin, which is beautiful, and relative to what we've seen so far, quiet, peaceful and calm - it's a huge but welcome adjustment for a couple days.  Our villa owner is an Indian named Russell, who spent his first 40 years in the UK and speaks with a great British accent.  Compared with Coimbatore, Cochin is full of tourists and westerners...  Before coming to Kerala, I think I saw maybe two Westerners during my entire time Coimbatore, so we really stand out.  But we've decided we all kind of like it this way, it makes for a pretty unique experience. 

Cochin has a strong Portuguese and and Dutch influence - Vasco da Gama landed there in 1498.  We visited the Mattancherry Palace and Santa Cruz Basilica, and (as we seem to do everywhere we go) did some shopping ;)  Some of my favorite experiences in India have been meeting the shopkeepers and hearing their stories.  We met a great guy in a silk store in Cochin who was from Kashmir, a place I'd love to visit someday.   He was so proud of his hometown and loved that we were so interested to learn about it.

We also went down to Alleppy for a boat tour on the backwaters, an almost endless network of lagoons and canals that start at the coast and extend inland.  We spent several very relaxing hours cruising through the waterways past villages, farms, and fishing nets - probably the most quiet I've experience since getting to India.  The sunset was absolutely gorgeous!
 

A group of school girls we came across

Today we visited several groups of women farmers.  There have been several types of cooperative groups deployed in the agriculture and dairy industries in India, and this is one of the things we're looking into as a potential recommendation for ABT.  Countries like New Zealand and Israel are particularly successful examples of this, and we're doing a lot of research into these and other similar models.  These are marginal farmers, with roughly 2-3 cows each, and struggling to grow green fodder and buy concentrate for their animals.  They're highly dependent on loans to purchase their cows, and really live a very hard life.  These groups are the target beneficiaries of our efforts here, and for good reason.

Wherever we went in these small villages we seem to attract an audience...  it starts small, and one by one, we'll have an entire entourage.

Some of the women farmers we spoke with

Today we visited Shakthi Dairy's Pollachi processing plant, where the milk is consolidated from the collection centers and bulk milk coolers to be pasteurized and processed into butter, ghee, yogurt and other products.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the plant was amazing.  The entire facility is kept sterile, which meant hairnets and shoe covers for all of us :)  We got to taste the freshly made butter and the ghee smells wonderful (though it can't be great for your arteries - it's clarified butter, first heated, then the solids removed so you're left with 96% fat content - they put it in everything here).  We also saw the huge silo for dehydrated milk powder, as well as the yogurt cups (called cup curd) being made.

Then we were invited to lunch at one of the dairy franchisee's farm.  He's a very successful farmer, and his farm was gorgeous...  more than a thousand coconut trees, horses, cows, goats, chickens, everything you can imagine.

Walking up to the farm house

Shanthi and our hosts

Lunch

After lunch, we visited another dairy farmer.  We're meeting a wide variety of farmers to get a sense of the issues and challenges each face with respect to production and procurement.  And this farmer was definitely on the more comfortable end of the spectrum.  His cows were very healthy, well fed, and well cared for, and he also grew a variety of agriculture crops (very common for dairy farmers in India), and had a fishing business in Kerala (the next state over from Tamilnadu).

Today we took a trip out to Parambikulam Tiger Preserve, about a 2.5 hour drive from Coimbatore.  Unfortunately we didn't see any tigers, but saw lots of other animals, a 500 year old teak tree, and enjoyed the relative quiet, calm surroundings.

Govert minding the rules...

We spent our first Saturday exploring Coimbatore....  rickshawing around to some new neighborhoods, shopping, eating, and generally supporting the local economy.  We also went out to our first "non-veg" dinner which was great.  The food has been amazing here - Tamilnadu is predominantly vegetarian, so lots of curries with coconut milk, dosas, naan, rice, etc.  

Me, Joao and Joe

Govert, Bernd and Valery

Today we had our first field interviews.  Shanthi, our client rep, took us to visit two bulk milk coolers, where the milk is consolidated from the collection centers, tested, and chilled before heading to the plant in Pollachi.  The drive out to the countryside was fascinating, as were the interviews.   We toured the area and interviewed the lead franchisees and all of their supervisors to understand Shakthi Dairy's milk production process.  I'm not sure who was more intrigued by whom!   Next week we'll be meeting the dairy farmers....

Made it to the race track this morning - an old horse racing track, about a kilometer from our guest house.  It's great, like the Central Park of Coimbatore, a former horse race track that's now a walking/running path, with trees, flowers and people performing some of the most interesting calisthenics and stretches you've ever seen :)

Today was our first day at the client site.  Joe, Sandra and I are being hosted at Shakthi Sugars' Coimbatore headquarters, right by the race track, and we quickly realized how lucky were were.  The office is one of the most beautiful in the city, and we somehow ended up on the executive floor and are treated like royalty.  There's a little blue button in our office, which calls a butler when you push it... who brings you anything you need.  And we eat lunch in the executive dining room which is an amazing experience in and of itself.  We eat off of huge plantain leaves, with three servers who come around with endless kinds of amazing food, replenishing any portion as soon as you take a few bites.  We will not be going hungry this month!

Sandra, Joe and me

Today we met all of the clients - we hosted a full day session at the guest house, which was so fascinating.  There are four clients for the 12 of us - three assigned to each.

ABT Dairy (part of Shakthi Group, a huge conglomerate in India) - This is the project I'm on with Joe and Sandra.  Our goal is to help them reach their goal of doubling milk production capacity by 2020 to meet demand in India as well as complete on the global market.  We'll be developing a cooperative model for the 18,000 dairy farmers they work with across the state of Tamilnadu, specifically focusing on the small and marginal farmers.

Sankara Eye Institute - A truly amazing organization.  They operate through a combination of a paid and volunteer workforce, providing 500 free eye surgeries every single day.  It's also one of the largest eye banks in India, and provides preventive care for children in villages as well.  I think our entire group will get to visit their hospital at some point.  http://www.sankaraeye.com/

India 75 - Celebrating India's 75th anniversary of independence in 2022, the group's goal is to create a new socio-economic model for India, using technology and entrepreneurship.  http://www.indiaat75.in/index.asp

PSG - Provides medical training for people all over India, especially the lower socio-economic population, with the goal of increasing the capacity of health care professionals in the region.

While we're each assigned to a single client, we all share knowledge and ideas on everyone's engagements.  Interesting comment from the presentations today - one in six people today live in India... crazy.

Arrived early today, with about an hour's sleep over the past two days...    and started right in with our orientation.   It's such an amazing group we have here - people from all over the world and all across IBM.  There are 12 of us on the team, from Australia, Brazil, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, the U.S. (2), Korea, the Philippines, Colombia, Hungary and France.  As my mother very smartly noted, even if we weren't in India, it would be an amazing experience simply living together for the next month - a true lesson in global politics and social issues.  But add in India and the amazing clients we're working with and it's that much more amazing.

Our team is staying at the Deja Vu Guesthouse in Coimbatore - we take up all of the rooms, so basically have the place to ourselves.  The staff is great - extremely accommodating and friendly.  Most of them speak at least some English, but there's also a lot of sign language going on :)

Here's an overview of the IBM Corporate Service Corp Program