In 1999, I stood on the edge of a silted lotus pond in Madhubani and watched a farmer hand-pop makhana over an open wood fire — a craft his family had practised for seven generations. The seeds were extraordinary. The market that bought them was not.

Shakti Sudha began that day with one promise: every farmer who tended a pond would be paid fairly, on time, every season. Twenty-five years on, that single pond has become a network of 15,000 farmer partners, and the white gold of Mithila reaches kitchens across 15+ countries.