The pandemic brought the shutters down on all of Tractors and Farm Equipment’s (TAFE’s) domestic manufacturing units. But Mallika Srinivasan, chairman and MD of the Chennai-based tractor and agriculture machinery manufacturer, came to the aid of small and marginal farmers through the company’s JFarm services, supplying over 4,400 tractors, along with 10,500 implements on a free-of-cost rental basis to farmers in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. More than 1,00,000 acres were cultivated using the rental service during the crucial Rabi season.
Mallika took over the reins of TAFE from her father A. Sivasailam in 1986. Fresh out of Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, her conviction that farm machinery for agriculture must be manufactured in India was the reason behind TAFE’s rise in the domestic market. From tractors, she expanded the product portfolio to include farming machinery, diesel engines and gensets, gears and hydraulic components and batteries. It helped catapult the company among the top three global tractor manufacturers in the world and the second largest in India by volumes. In April 2022, the company sold 16,817 tractors, increasing its market share by 1.24% year on year. TAFE exports tractors to to South Asia, Europe, West Asia and Africa. — Vijayalakshmi Sridhar