Madhav Kshatriya, Managing Director and CEO of Cornext Agri Products Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad, Telangana, discusses how India’s livestock sector is severely impacted by the shortage of fodder. Farmers often struggle to feed their animals, especially during dry seasons. Adopting the use of baled silage provides a practical way to store and preserve nutritious fodder for longer periods throughout the year.
India’s Fodder Challenge
India has the largest cattle population in the world, yet its average milk yield is less than 2,000 litres per cow per year — significantly below the global average. It takes seven to eight Indian cows to produce the same quantity of milk as a single cow in Israel or the USA. The primary reason for this gap lies in the severe shortage of quality fodder and hay, especially during seasons unsuitable for fodder cultivation.
This shortage has deeply affected dairy farmers, particularly women, who constitute nearly 70% of the workforce in the dairy sector. Recognising this challenge, Cornext identified a sustainable solution to ensure year-round fodder availability.
India experiences two extremes of climate — drought, when not a blade of grass can grow, and floods, when harvesting becomes impossible. Most dairy farmers depend on paddy and wheat straw — crop residues with minimal nutritional value. While the government invests heavily in improving the genetic potential of cattle, the lack of nutritious feed prevents farmers from realizing the animals’ full yield potential.
The Overlooked Profitability of Dairy Farmers
In the current dairy ecosystem, the profitability of farmers is often neglected. As long as milk reaches urban markets through cooperatives or private enterprises, little attention is given to whether farmers earn a fair return. During fodder shortages, they are forced to rely on low-quality, high-cost feed alternatives. This raises production costs, reduces milk yield, and ultimately erodes farm income and sustainability.
Moreover, gaps in backend integration — including cow health, nutrition, and breeding management — continue to limit productivity and long-term profitability. This situation presents a huge opportunity for innovators, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and scientists to intervene, especially since most dairy farmers own only three to four cows.
The Silage Solution
To address the fodder gap, Cornext promotes silage — a time-tested method of preserving green fodder for use throughout the year. Traditionally, silage-making in India was inefficient, but Cornext has modernised and standardised the process by indigenising the technology to suit India’s dairy ecosystem. Today, more than 22 varieties of crops can be converted into silage, including maize, sorghum, barley, oats, and sugarcane tops — agricultural residues that would otherwise go to waste.
Silage provides balanced nutrition, energy, and protein, while enhancing animal health, milk yield, and reproductive performance. With a shelf life of up to one year, it also reduces dependence on costly commercial feed concentrates, offering farmers a sustainable and affordable feed solution.
Building a National Silage Network
Cornext utilises crops such as maize, sorghum, oats, sugarcane tops, wheat, Napier grass, and alfalfa to produce high-quality silage. In several other regions, including Africa, local grasses are similarly used for silage-making — while their nutritional profiles may differ, the principles of preservation, compaction, and usage remain the same.
To ensure year-round fodder availability, Cornext has established a nationwide network of silage production and baling units, supported by a growing ecosystem of trained fodder entrepreneurs. This decentralised model ensures that farmers across diverse agro-climatic zones can access nutritious fodder locally, even during periods of drought or flood.
During adverse conditions, silage bales stored safely can serve as a critical feed reserve, ensuring cattle's health and continuity of milk production. The bales are mould- and fungus-free, highly palatable, and nutrient-rich, providing consistent quality and value. Each bale typically contains about 35% dry matter, equivalent to high-quality feed, but at a significantly lower cost compared to conventional alternatives.
By introducing baled silage for the first time in India, Cornext has built the foundation for a sustainable and resilient fodder ecosystem — improving livestock productivity, stabilising farmer incomes, and strengthening the overall dairy value chain.
From Waste to Efficiency
Silage can be prepared in different forms — in bags, bunkers, or bales — each with varying levels of efficiency and suitability. Traditionally, many farmers used bag silage, where fodder was manually compacted and sealed in plastic bags. However, this method often resulted in poor-quality silage due to inadequate compaction and exposure to oxygen, which leads to spoilage and nutrient loss.
Bunker silage offers slightly better results, with improved compaction and shelf life, but it involves high capital expenditure and significant wastage — often up to 15% — due to moisture loss and exposure to air. These methods are not ideal for small and medium-scale dairy farmers in India, as they require large land areas, infrastructure, and heavy equipment.
To overcome these limitations, Cornext introduced baled silage, a compact, transportable, and highly efficient solution. Each bale — typically weighing between 50 kilograms and one tonne — is tightly packed and sealed in an anaerobic environment, ensuring zero oxygen entry and long-term preservation of nutrients. The bales can be easily transported and stored without special infrastructure, making them accessible to farmers even in remote regions.
Cornext’s indigenously developed baled silage technology was inspired by advanced European systems but redesigned to suit Indian conditions — offering a cost-effective, scalable, and decentralised model for fodder preservation. This innovation has revolutionised cattle feeding practices in India and several other countries, transforming crop residues and surplus green fodder into a sustainable, year-round feed resource.
Empowering Rural Entrepreneurs
Cornext’s innovation goes beyond technology — it has built an entrepreneurship-driven ecosystem that empowers rural communities to take charge of local fodder production. Recognising that large-scale, centralised silage operations are not feasible in most parts of India, Cornext developed a mini silage baler priced affordably at around ₹10.5 lakhs. This compact, mobile unit enables small entrepreneurs, farmer-producer organisations (FPOs), and rural youth to set up decentralised fodder production units close to dairy clusters.
Each unit can produce 15–20 metric tonnes of silage per day, supplying feed to hundreds of cattle and generating sustainable rural employment. Cornext’s model, branded as FeedNext, connects these fodder entrepreneurs to a digital marketplace, helping them optimise production, access buyers, and scale their operations efficiently.
A single entrepreneur can produce up to 2,000 metric tonnes of silage annually, generating revenues of approximately ₹1.2 crore and feeding around 2,000 cattle for three months. This decentralised approach not only strengthens fodder security but also creates new avenues for income diversification across the dairy value chain.
Today, Cornext’s growing network of fodder entrepreneurs operates across India and in 30+ countries across Africa, Asia, and South America — such as Kenya, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Botswana, and Tanzania — regions that share similar dairy and fodder challenges. The model enables local investors and smallholders to become self-sufficient in feed production, improve cattle health and milk yield, and enhance overall farm profitability.
This approach also directly benefits maize farmers, who can now cultivate a short-duration, high-value crop for silage production, creating an additional revenue stream while contributing to sustainable fodder availability. By linking dairy farmers, fodder producers, and crop growers through a single ecosystem, Cornext is transforming the rural dairy economy from the ground up.
Driving Fodder Innovation Globally
Cornext’s decentralised entrepreneurship model has proven to be not only effective for Indian dairy farmers but also adaptable to other countries facing similar challenges in feed and fodder availability. The model’s strength lies in its affordability, scalability, and local adaptability, making it ideal for smallholder-dominated dairy economies across Asia, Africa, and South America.
Each fodder entrepreneur can recover their investment within one to two seasons, earning profits of up to ₹16 lakhs annually while maintaining a consistent supply of high-quality silage. For maize farmers, the model offers an additional income source with lower water consumption, reduced production risk, and better returns than selling grain.
Beyond improving profitability, the Cornext model contributes significantly to environmental sustainability. By utilising crop residues that would otherwise be burned, the initiative helps prevent stubble burning, lowers greenhouse gas emissions, and reduces fossil fuel usage in fodder transport — collectively cutting CO₂ emissions by up to 15%.
Cornext’s partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh on fodder security policy led to the development of a framework that inspired the Central Government’s Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF). For its contributions, Cornext has received two prestigious National Awards — one for Best Startup and another from the Department of Animal Husbandry, Government of India. The company also serves on the Government of India’s Advisory Council on cattle feed and fodder, helping shape policy for a more resilient dairy sector.
Through schemes such as the National Livestock Mission, PMEGP, and AHIDF, silage entrepreneurs can now access subsidies of up to 50%, along with loans and interest subventions to establish or expand fodder production units. As of now, over 150+ projects have been approved under these schemes, with a significant portion dedicated to the feed and fodder sector.
Cornext’s global footprint continues to grow, with operations and partnerships in South America, Africa, and South Asia. In several countries, Cornext’s indigenised technology has reduced fodder production costs dramatically compared to earlier imported systems. Recent orders from countries like Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Botswana highlight the increasing international recognition of Cornext’s scalable and sustainable approach to fodder security.
Efficient, Profitable Fodder Solution
Cornext’s baled silage technology combines efficiency, durability, and affordability to deliver a complete fodder solution for dairy farmers. Each bale is wrapped in recyclable, food-grade plastic, ensuring complete anaerobic sealing and long-term nutrient retention. The bales are resistant to mould, fungus, and pests, making them ideal for long-term storage in any weather conditions without the need for special infrastructure.
Unlike bunker silage, which requires high capital investment and often leads to spoilage losses, baled silage offers higher preservation efficiency with minimal setup. Farmers can easily transport, store, and use the bales as needed, ensuring a steady supply of quality fodder throughout the year. The mobility of the bales also allows them to be traded or shared among cooperatives, enabling additional income opportunities for both fodder producers and dairy farmers.
Cornext’s decentralised entrepreneur network has established short-distance silage supply hubs that ensure doorstep delivery to dairy clusters across India. This not only minimises transportation losses but also ensures freshness and affordability for the end user. The solution has gained widespread acceptance among cooperatives, private dairies, and small farmers, demonstrating its scalability and real-world impact.
By converting green fodder into compact, long-lasting silage bales, Cornext has created a system that is economically viable, environmentally responsible, and socially inclusive — a true example of innovation driving rural transformation.
Scaling Fodder Distribution
Efficient distribution is critical to making quality fodder accessible to every dairy farmer. Cornext’s baled silage system drastically reduces transportation costs and post-harvest losses. While a conventional truck can carry only about 12 tonnes of loose green fodder or hay, the same vehicle can transport up to 25 tonnes of compact silage bales — effectively doubling efficiency and cutting logistics expenses by half.
To further accelerate the adoption of silage across India, several government schemes are enabling entrepreneurs and cooperatives to set up fodder units with attractive financial support:
National Livestock Mission (NLM): 50% capital subsidy on projects up to ₹1 crore.
Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP): 25% subsidy for rural enterprises and up to ₹50 lakhs for manufacturing units.
Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF): up to 90% project subsidy, a 3% interest subvention, and a two-year repayment moratorium.
These incentives empower FPOs, FPCs, and private entrepreneurs to invest in silage infrastructure and extend affordable feed to smallholder dairy farmers. Cornext works closely with cooperatives such as Amul, Milma, Sanchi, KMF, Aavin, and RCDF, helping integrate baled silage into their supply chains and ensuring reliable last-mile delivery.
The company’s aggregator model connects maize growers, fodder entrepreneurs, and dairy farmers into a unified value chain. Cornext provides installation, training, credit support, and market linkage, enabling entrepreneurs to operate independently while ensuring consistent quality standards. In cases where financing is a constraint, Cornext extends credit facilities, recovered gradually through silage sales — ensuring scalability without financial stress.
With increasing demand for quality feed, Cornext and its network of fodder entrepreneurs are set to expand production capacity manifold in the coming years. The goal is to produce hundreds of thousands of tonnes of silage annually, creating rural jobs, stabilising milk productivity, and building a sustainable fodder security framework for India and beyond.
Through this integrated model, Cornext is not only transforming how fodder is produced and distributed but also redefining the economics of the dairy ecosystem — ensuring that every farmer, regardless of scale, has access to nutritious, affordable, and reliable feed all year round.
Contact details
Madhav Kshatriya
Managing Director and CEO, Cornext Agri Products Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad, Telangana
Mobile no: 90001 23316
Email: madhav.kshatriya@cornext.in
India’s Fodder Challenge
India has the largest cattle population in the world, yet its average milk yield is less than 2,000 litres per cow per year — significantly below the global average. It takes seven to eight Indian cows to produce the same quantity of milk as a single cow in Israel or the USA. The primary reason for this gap lies in the severe shortage of quality fodder and hay, especially during seasons unsuitable for fodder cultivation.
This shortage has deeply affected dairy farmers, particularly women, who constitute nearly 70% of the workforce in the dairy sector. Recognising this challenge, Cornext identified a sustainable solution to ensure year-round fodder availability.
India experiences two extremes of climate — drought, when not a blade of grass can grow, and floods, when harvesting becomes impossible. Most dairy farmers depend on paddy and wheat straw — crop residues with minimal nutritional value. While the government invests heavily in improving the genetic potential of cattle, the lack of nutritious feed prevents farmers from realizing the animals’ full yield potential.
The Overlooked Profitability of Dairy Farmers
In the current dairy ecosystem, the profitability of farmers is often neglected. As long as milk reaches urban markets through cooperatives or private enterprises, little attention is given to whether farmers earn a fair return. During fodder shortages, they are forced to rely on low-quality, high-cost feed alternatives. This raises production costs, reduces milk yield, and ultimately erodes farm income and sustainability.
Moreover, gaps in backend integration — including cow health, nutrition, and breeding management — continue to limit productivity and long-term profitability. This situation presents a huge opportunity for innovators, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and scientists to intervene, especially since most dairy farmers own only three to four cows.
The Silage Solution
To address the fodder gap, Cornext promotes silage — a time-tested method of preserving green fodder for use throughout the year. Traditionally, silage-making in India was inefficient, but Cornext has modernised and standardised the process by indigenising the technology to suit India’s dairy ecosystem. Today, more than 22 varieties of crops can be converted into silage, including maize, sorghum, barley, oats, and sugarcane tops — agricultural residues that would otherwise go to waste.
Silage provides balanced nutrition, energy, and protein, while enhancing animal health, milk yield, and reproductive performance. With a shelf life of up to one year, it also reduces dependence on costly commercial feed concentrates, offering farmers a sustainable and affordable feed solution.
Building a National Silage Network
Cornext utilises crops such as maize, sorghum, oats, sugarcane tops, wheat, Napier grass, and alfalfa to produce high-quality silage. In several other regions, including Africa, local grasses are similarly used for silage-making — while their nutritional profiles may differ, the principles of preservation, compaction, and usage remain the same.
To ensure year-round fodder availability, Cornext has established a nationwide network of silage production and baling units, supported by a growing ecosystem of trained fodder entrepreneurs. This decentralised model ensures that farmers across diverse agro-climatic zones can access nutritious fodder locally, even during periods of drought or flood.
During adverse conditions, silage bales stored safely can serve as a critical feed reserve, ensuring cattle's health and continuity of milk production. The bales are mould- and fungus-free, highly palatable, and nutrient-rich, providing consistent quality and value. Each bale typically contains about 35% dry matter, equivalent to high-quality feed, but at a significantly lower cost compared to conventional alternatives.
By introducing baled silage for the first time in India, Cornext has built the foundation for a sustainable and resilient fodder ecosystem — improving livestock productivity, stabilising farmer incomes, and strengthening the overall dairy value chain.
From Waste to Efficiency
Silage can be prepared in different forms — in bags, bunkers, or bales — each with varying levels of efficiency and suitability. Traditionally, many farmers used bag silage, where fodder was manually compacted and sealed in plastic bags. However, this method often resulted in poor-quality silage due to inadequate compaction and exposure to oxygen, which leads to spoilage and nutrient loss.
Bunker silage offers slightly better results, with improved compaction and shelf life, but it involves high capital expenditure and significant wastage — often up to 15% — due to moisture loss and exposure to air. These methods are not ideal for small and medium-scale dairy farmers in India, as they require large land areas, infrastructure, and heavy equipment.
To overcome these limitations, Cornext introduced baled silage, a compact, transportable, and highly efficient solution. Each bale — typically weighing between 50 kilograms and one tonne — is tightly packed and sealed in an anaerobic environment, ensuring zero oxygen entry and long-term preservation of nutrients. The bales can be easily transported and stored without special infrastructure, making them accessible to farmers even in remote regions.
Cornext’s indigenously developed baled silage technology was inspired by advanced European systems but redesigned to suit Indian conditions — offering a cost-effective, scalable, and decentralised model for fodder preservation. This innovation has revolutionised cattle feeding practices in India and several other countries, transforming crop residues and surplus green fodder into a sustainable, year-round feed resource.
Empowering Rural Entrepreneurs
Cornext’s innovation goes beyond technology — it has built an entrepreneurship-driven ecosystem that empowers rural communities to take charge of local fodder production. Recognising that large-scale, centralised silage operations are not feasible in most parts of India, Cornext developed a mini silage baler priced affordably at around ₹10.5 lakhs. This compact, mobile unit enables small entrepreneurs, farmer-producer organisations (FPOs), and rural youth to set up decentralised fodder production units close to dairy clusters.
Each unit can produce 15–20 metric tonnes of silage per day, supplying feed to hundreds of cattle and generating sustainable rural employment. Cornext’s model, branded as FeedNext, connects these fodder entrepreneurs to a digital marketplace, helping them optimise production, access buyers, and scale their operations efficiently.
A single entrepreneur can produce up to 2,000 metric tonnes of silage annually, generating revenues of approximately ₹1.2 crore and feeding around 2,000 cattle for three months. This decentralised approach not only strengthens fodder security but also creates new avenues for income diversification across the dairy value chain.
Today, Cornext’s growing network of fodder entrepreneurs operates across India and in 30+ countries across Africa, Asia, and South America — such as Kenya, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Botswana, and Tanzania — regions that share similar dairy and fodder challenges. The model enables local investors and smallholders to become self-sufficient in feed production, improve cattle health and milk yield, and enhance overall farm profitability.
This approach also directly benefits maize farmers, who can now cultivate a short-duration, high-value crop for silage production, creating an additional revenue stream while contributing to sustainable fodder availability. By linking dairy farmers, fodder producers, and crop growers through a single ecosystem, Cornext is transforming the rural dairy economy from the ground up.
Driving Fodder Innovation Globally
Cornext’s decentralised entrepreneurship model has proven to be not only effective for Indian dairy farmers but also adaptable to other countries facing similar challenges in feed and fodder availability. The model’s strength lies in its affordability, scalability, and local adaptability, making it ideal for smallholder-dominated dairy economies across Asia, Africa, and South America.
Each fodder entrepreneur can recover their investment within one to two seasons, earning profits of up to ₹16 lakhs annually while maintaining a consistent supply of high-quality silage. For maize farmers, the model offers an additional income source with lower water consumption, reduced production risk, and better returns than selling grain.
Beyond improving profitability, the Cornext model contributes significantly to environmental sustainability. By utilising crop residues that would otherwise be burned, the initiative helps prevent stubble burning, lowers greenhouse gas emissions, and reduces fossil fuel usage in fodder transport — collectively cutting CO₂ emissions by up to 15%.
Cornext’s partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh on fodder security policy led to the development of a framework that inspired the Central Government’s Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF). For its contributions, Cornext has received two prestigious National Awards — one for Best Startup and another from the Department of Animal Husbandry, Government of India. The company also serves on the Government of India’s Advisory Council on cattle feed and fodder, helping shape policy for a more resilient dairy sector.
Through schemes such as the National Livestock Mission, PMEGP, and AHIDF, silage entrepreneurs can now access subsidies of up to 50%, along with loans and interest subventions to establish or expand fodder production units. As of now, over 150+ projects have been approved under these schemes, with a significant portion dedicated to the feed and fodder sector.
Cornext’s global footprint continues to grow, with operations and partnerships in South America, Africa, and South Asia. In several countries, Cornext’s indigenised technology has reduced fodder production costs dramatically compared to earlier imported systems. Recent orders from countries like Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Botswana highlight the increasing international recognition of Cornext’s scalable and sustainable approach to fodder security.
Efficient, Profitable Fodder Solution
Cornext’s baled silage technology combines efficiency, durability, and affordability to deliver a complete fodder solution for dairy farmers. Each bale is wrapped in recyclable, food-grade plastic, ensuring complete anaerobic sealing and long-term nutrient retention. The bales are resistant to mould, fungus, and pests, making them ideal for long-term storage in any weather conditions without the need for special infrastructure.
Unlike bunker silage, which requires high capital investment and often leads to spoilage losses, baled silage offers higher preservation efficiency with minimal setup. Farmers can easily transport, store, and use the bales as needed, ensuring a steady supply of quality fodder throughout the year. The mobility of the bales also allows them to be traded or shared among cooperatives, enabling additional income opportunities for both fodder producers and dairy farmers.
Cornext’s decentralised entrepreneur network has established short-distance silage supply hubs that ensure doorstep delivery to dairy clusters across India. This not only minimises transportation losses but also ensures freshness and affordability for the end user. The solution has gained widespread acceptance among cooperatives, private dairies, and small farmers, demonstrating its scalability and real-world impact.
By converting green fodder into compact, long-lasting silage bales, Cornext has created a system that is economically viable, environmentally responsible, and socially inclusive — a true example of innovation driving rural transformation.
Scaling Fodder Distribution
Efficient distribution is critical to making quality fodder accessible to every dairy farmer. Cornext’s baled silage system drastically reduces transportation costs and post-harvest losses. While a conventional truck can carry only about 12 tonnes of loose green fodder or hay, the same vehicle can transport up to 25 tonnes of compact silage bales — effectively doubling efficiency and cutting logistics expenses by half.
To further accelerate the adoption of silage across India, several government schemes are enabling entrepreneurs and cooperatives to set up fodder units with attractive financial support:
National Livestock Mission (NLM): 50% capital subsidy on projects up to ₹1 crore.
Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP): 25% subsidy for rural enterprises and up to ₹50 lakhs for manufacturing units.
Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF): up to 90% project subsidy, a 3% interest subvention, and a two-year repayment moratorium.
These incentives empower FPOs, FPCs, and private entrepreneurs to invest in silage infrastructure and extend affordable feed to smallholder dairy farmers. Cornext works closely with cooperatives such as Amul, Milma, Sanchi, KMF, Aavin, and RCDF, helping integrate baled silage into their supply chains and ensuring reliable last-mile delivery.
The company’s aggregator model connects maize growers, fodder entrepreneurs, and dairy farmers into a unified value chain. Cornext provides installation, training, credit support, and market linkage, enabling entrepreneurs to operate independently while ensuring consistent quality standards. In cases where financing is a constraint, Cornext extends credit facilities, recovered gradually through silage sales — ensuring scalability without financial stress.
With increasing demand for quality feed, Cornext and its network of fodder entrepreneurs are set to expand production capacity manifold in the coming years. The goal is to produce hundreds of thousands of tonnes of silage annually, creating rural jobs, stabilising milk productivity, and building a sustainable fodder security framework for India and beyond.
Through this integrated model, Cornext is not only transforming how fodder is produced and distributed but also redefining the economics of the dairy ecosystem — ensuring that every farmer, regardless of scale, has access to nutritious, affordable, and reliable feed all year round.
Contact details
Madhav Kshatriya
Managing Director and CEO, Cornext Agri Products Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad, Telangana
Mobile no: 90001 23316
Email: madhav.kshatriya@cornext.in
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