A Successful Dairy Farm Intervention

Manasi Ksheerasagaram unit is a successful entrepreneurial venture of five women, Moli Varghese, Shylaja Raju, Rajini, Padmini and Lalitha Surendran. The unit is working under Kudumbashree CDS of Melur Gramapanchayat, Thrissur district. The unit is the bread winning venture of the ladies involved. All the members are exceedingly satisfied with their farming activities and the income they acquire out of it. A total of 14 cows are there in the unit including both heifers and lactating cows. Milk, ghee, curd and dung are the outputs they sell from the unit.

The Manasi Ksheerasagaram unit started in 2019 with the subsidized loan amount got from the Kudumbashree, the poverty eradication mission of the state that is implementing the DAY-NRLM. Initially, the women were finding it difficult to get an income for their livelihood. At that time, Kudumbashree came up with funding support to start a farm. The ladies took this as an opportunity and took up the venture in valour and hope.

Now they are getting feed at a subsidized rate from the milk society. Also they are doing fodder cultivation. Kudumbashree helped them to build cattle shed to purchase cows to start a fodder cultivation unit through subsidized loan.

Now the mentors are really happy with their life. The unit caters their routine financial needs, education of children thereby serving as the fiscal backbone of their families. The women says that such initiative from Kudumbashree helps women to get both social and financial status and there by helps in women empowerment. The monthly income of the unit is Rs.2,06,500/- and after deducting the monthly expenditure on feed and other expenses of Rs.22,250/-, they earn a net profit of Rs.1,84,250/.

Kudumbashree reveals to be the real bread winner for the aforesaid women and thereby for their families. A fair amount of profit obtaining by this group of women is a role model to the society and many such groups formed near and around the area, thereby laying a footstep for the development of locale.

Source : Inspirational Stories of Aatmanirbhar Rural Women