Cows gifted to beat debt help T village churn out ghee for kitchens in US, UK | Hyderabad News

Hanumakonda: Once a nondescript hamlet in Telangana’s Hanumakonda village – roughly 140 km from Hyderabad – Kummarigudem has earned global recognition now. The reason: tins of ghee from here are shipped out to homes across the US and UK every month. This despite its premium pricing. A tin of ghee procured from a seller in this tiny village costs a steep Rs 3,000 per litre – at least four to five times more than the average cost of other commercially available ghee brands.
Its USP: Superior quality, sourced from the ‘Giri’ breed of cows. Locals say that at least 30 litres to 35 litres of milk is used to eventually churn out one litre of ghee. The usual ratio is 20:1.
“Every two months, we send three to four litres of ghee to my daughter in Atlanta and three other families in Dallas. And before their supply runs out, we arrange for a fresh shipment,” said Vishnu Vardhan Reddy, a retired govt employee from Hanumakonda. He said that each shipment via courier costs him about Rs 650 per kg.
Kummarigudem’s story as the ‘New Zealand’ of Telangana – each of the 70 houses here owns a cow and is part of the dairy business – started in 2018 when a German philanthropist, Monika Ratering, donated 30 cows to help the villagers beat debt. Since then, the hamlet has been collectively producing over 1,500 litres of milk and 30 litres of ghee a month – hugely popular among residents of neighbouring towns and villages. While much of the consumption is local, residents say that at least 10 litres to 15 litres are shipped overseas through cargo service.
Villagers say that this growing popularity of the ghee has also brought prosperity to the village, once bogged down with severe financial losses. “Prior to this, most people primarily engaged in farming while some had a small herd of buffaloes. But their earnings were less than Rs 3,000 a month. Now that has increased to Rs 7,000 from dairy activities alone,” said M Raju, who runs the ghee station in Kummarigudem. Another villager, M Buchiraju, said how the count of cows has increased to more than 70 now. “It has changed the face of our village and made everybody debt-free,” the beaming villager added.
Hamlet’s favourite ma’am
She is the hamlet’s favourite ‘ma’am’. A series of news reports about suicides in the erstwhile Warangal district, in 2018, pushed Monika Ratering, a German philanthropist, to visit this part of the world. She realised that people were taking their lives as they were unable to repay loans that they availed of through small microfinancing firms. Bothered by this and desperate to help, she went on a tour of villages in the district before settling for Kummarigudem. She donated 30 ‘Giri’ breed cows from Gujarat, each valued at Rs 50,000, to the families here, nudging them to start dairy farming.
She is only too thrilled to see the progress that the hamlet has made in the last seven years since then.
“It brings me so much joy to witness this hamlet’s remarkable growth. It has also given the youth of the hamlet the opportunity to pursue an education. Now, when I walk through the village, it fills me with pride to see English-speaking youngsters accompanying me. The locals are always so warm,” said Ratering, a follower of Sathya Sai Baba who has been visiting India regularly since 1998.
In this hamlet, she is fondly referred to as “ma’am”. “It is extremely satisfying when villagers call on me to see their healthy cattle, tell me how their lives have changed for the better and how the village has now become popular because of its dairy products. I derive a lot of joy from their contentment,” said the philanthropist who is currently in Berlin.