Scientific Intervention in Dairy Farming

Introduction

• Smt. Lakshmi is a small scale farmer with five acres of land.
• Before 2016 she was earning a sum of Rs.24000/- annually as net income from amla trees cultivated in three acres of land which was not sufficient for raising her family.
• Due to low income she was unable to give good education to her children.
• She was desperately looking for new opportunities to start a new enterprise in order to boost her annual income for better living standards

Training & Motivation

• She underwent a training programme on “Dairy Farming” conducted by Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Dindigul, Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram where she learned about various aspects of dairy farming including selection of dairy animals, housing, feeding, breeding and scientific management of dairy cows.
• As a result of capacity building training by KVK, Dindigul she established a small dairy unit in her farm with 2 crossbred milch animals in the year 2017 as an additional enterprise and showed persistent growth in milk production by adopting the scientific dairy farming practices, she had learnt from the training which led to increase in her monthly income.
• The increase in income has motivated her to expand her farm activities and shift towards mechanization by purchasing chaff cutter, milking machine, brush cutter, etc with the help of KVK experts.
• By seeing her progress, one acre of the cultivable land was selected by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Dindigul for implementation of frontline demonstration on fodder bank at farm level where she cultivated Cumbu Napier Grass (CO-5), Hamil Grass/Guinea Grass (CO-GG3) and Hedge Lucerne in 50 cents, 25 cents and 25 cents of land respectively and sprinklers were used for irrigation purpose in the field to conserve water.

Achievements

• Currently, Smt. Lakshmi has 10 dairy animals and became a successful dairy entrepreneur and producing 80 litres of milk per day which is sold to local vendors and consumers in her village.
• By selling the milk at the rate of Rs.25 per litre, she is able to generate revenue of Rs. 60,000/- per month.
• Furthermore, she has employed 2 labourers in her farm from the nearby villages to look after the daily routines of the dairy enterprise.
• She is also getting additional income by selling manure, fodder slips and fodder seeds.
• After meeting out all the expenses, she is now earning an annual net income of Rs. 3,60,000/- from dairying. She established an integrated farming systems model in her farm and purchased five more cows. Hydrophonics was practiced for fodder cultivation. Her farm became a model for other dairy entrepreneurs to adopt similar technologies and motivated other farmers to attend similar trainings conducted by ICAR – KVK, Dindigul in dairy farming.

Awards & Recognitions

• She got best dairy farmer award from VUTRC, Dindigul

Source : Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare