Dear Mr.Nilesh,
I am a person who had spent 20 years in this line. Its good and a new trend that many youngsters are interested in agriculture and dairy farming. In software industry after a certain period, we would like to be in a tension free cool atmosphere. It might look very attractive, but like software here also pirates are there. Labourers wont feed your cow properly and they will flick the cattle feed,mineral mixtures,vitamins and they will be reporting it as fed to the cow. You will be wondering that in spite of spending all this you are not getting milk. Poor cow!!. If inputs are there,outputs will be there.
You can hardly find straight forward people. The trouble starts when you want to source cows.You find many people who are not at all trustworthy. Feeding cows too is a subject of challenge.Feed in the right quantity, no overfeeding.You must be a good accountant.All expenses inwards and outwards must be accounted. Try to be in the farm when feeding cows and while milking too. There are other lines which will go with dairy farming like organic manure production,vermi composting - these products will be of good demand in nurseries, floriculture people,vegetable growers,farmers etc.
10 cows itself will cost you something between 4.5 to 5 Lacs.Please note that i dont deal with cows. Am a machinery supplier.1 acre will be enough for 8-10 cows. Give them good housing. Look after them well.Provide Cow mats made of rubber for them to lie down.They can protect their body by keeping it warm and no knee& thigh injuries.Helps them in udder hygiene.Milking machine with single bucket .Housing - construct a simple shed with sloping roof,sides open.Cows plus other accessories like milking machine,chaff cutter to chop fodder grown for cows,feeding utensils,Calf bottle,Barn Scrapers, Total set up will cost you 10 Lacs. Land on lease not recommended as you will have to leave the set up one day.Having own land is better.
Milk - You are free to sell it to anybody.Give milk to those who will pay you well.Milk Co-operatives and private dairy players pay according to the fat and water percentage in milk. There is no binding on milk co-operatives to procure the milk from your farm and vice versa. You can give milk to anybody you like. You can make more money if you sell it as fresh milk.Concentrate on housing societies or Flats. Milk from 10 cows can be fully sold in one flat.Need not run around. Good milk will always have demand.
Happy dairying!!
Murali
I am a software engineer, and I want to start business in agriculture. I have done R&D on dairy farming........ I want to start this business on small scale (with 10 cows). I would like to know the total project cost and what would be the return?
Initially, I am planning to take land on lease/rent around 1 acre. Fodder will be partially grow in land and partially purchase.
This project will be implemented near Ratnagiri, Khed. I heard that as per govt regulation milk co-operative societies takes all the milk from milk producer. Is it true?
Awaiting reply.
