A 3000 Cow unit- sounds familiar.....

As I have travelled around the world (it seems like I've been everywhere, but Facebook app assures me it is only 21%) I have seen that there is a trend towards large scale herds based on US style feed lots.
The most succesful of these seem to be around 2-3000 cows based in sheds of 500 each with loafing areas in between.
I have no doubt that these type of farms will become more common place in the UK, but I'm sure that the Nocton boys will tell you, the UK is a different market to deal in.

In Chattisgarh we visited Mr Bahudir Ali's ABIS Dairy farm where 2000 cows were kept in clean well designed feed lots, a bit like the one I saw in Sydney, Australia (run by the excellent Michael Perich)





The ABIS farm employs someehre around 50 people, the wage bill for a basic farm worker is about £10 for a 6 day week. So, it is no problem over staffing!!

The milk price is similar to the UK and with the ability to grow up to 3 crops of maize in a 12 month period and soya grown in India feed does not seem to problem.

This lady is sweeping feed up to the cows constantly. Another similar lady was sweeping up poo, it seemed as if there was almost someone following the cows with a shovel!! Interestingly, the poo was scooped and sent away to be pelleted at another ABIS factory for fertiliser.

In the calf houses two men were on duty 24/7 so the calves were extremely clean and well fed. any ailments were treated almost immediately.

The whole operation was overseen by two vets and all in all a credit to them.

The Indian people fully beleive that they will be able to fulfill increased demand of more than twice their current (2nd Highest in the world after the US)) production.

I doubt that many of us in the UK gazing into our navels about milk price and what bad boys the supermarkets are even considering exporting to India at the moment (they said they would love our cheese and what lovely green hills we have...)

Udaipur to Raipur

Another day another flight... how many times will we pass thorugh Delhi Airport on this trip.
We are off down to Raipur in Chattisgarh. Its a bit lower down (sort of middleish) in India.



giant feed plant
no health and safety!!

We are meeting with Ricky, who sells drugs to chicken farms. He has arranged or us to meet with Abis Group run by Mr Bahadur Ali an inspiring character who has built up an actual empire from small broiler farm of 10,000 birds to a chicken turnover of 2.5 million chickens per cycle 7 times a year, 1 million layers (in battery houses) 250,000 brreeding chickens, 2500 Holstein cross cows, 1000 milking buffalo, one of the biggest animal and aqua feed plants in india, a rendering plant and a fertilizer plant. Alan Sugar eat your heart out!!

these guys lifted 70kg bags on the truck



First we visit the feed plant. it makes cattle, chicken, dog and fish feeds. It is easy to see that regulation is not as strict in India. only the managers seemd to wear PPE, I don't think you can get steel toe cap bare feet. I rmember having to lift 50kg bags as a kid, but these guys were lifting 75kg bags!! they even get to build the whole factory without needing planning permission.

Another bit of r&r

A break from farming visits allowed us to visit the temples near Ranakpur. A fantastic cultural experience- but all I could do was hum songs from jungle book!!


Ranakpur Jain Temple is famous for its excellent sculptures and architecture. Surrounded by the Aravali hills and located on the banks of 'Magai' river this grand & gigantic four facet structures was erected in the 14th Century. The Temple is three storied, 102 ft. high and its spread over an area of 48000 sq. ft. The present structure of the temple came into being after the hard works of 50 years by various artisans & sculptors.

The nearby Jungle (behind left) is a Leopard reserve and the picture on the right is James Peck my best Leopard hunting buddy.

Sheep?

I'm with tony and michael who are sheep farmers. We visited a group of nomadic sheep farmers on Sunday as they were having their shearing festival. Apart from the outfits I don't see much difference between the way these guys farm and sheep farming at home about 30 years ago. Prices seem ok but they felt their way of life was threatened.



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25kilos of flies!!!

After a frightful experience involving a hotel bathroom with blood up the wall, our trip to see Indian agriculture took us to a couple of dairy farms.




The cow is a sacred animal in India, although religious it is based on the fact that while alive the cow produces milk, fertilizer and the lovely poo logs for fuel above.



Harinder Singh has a 50 cow herd but is doubling in size (see his development above) and Harinder is a member of the punjabi progressive dairy farmers whose plan is to have 2 large dairies in each village- there are 2500 villages in the area!!



Indian has a population of 1.14 billion people: the government has a policy to double milk production to feed the nation. We visited a corporate farm which has 1100 animals on a development farm using embryo transplant technology to provide quality genetics to a network of farming ladies who each owned 5 cows each on large units collectively managed by the ladies on a rota.
Their brand tru milk has a unique selling point that the milk is sold to European standards; they told us in Indian dairies 25kg of flies are filtered from the milk any one day!

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Camelama-ding dong

Now what has camel farming got to do with consumer attitudes to milk. Well if you've ever drunk warm camel milk in the middle of nowhere you would know about presentation.
These guys were nomadic again, but in a much bigger way; again they felt their way of life was under threat.
We watched a technique to get a camel to come to milk by inserting spicy leaves up it's jacksie and tying it in for a few hours. Ouch.


The turbanator

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Look at these babies!!

The new cows have finally arrived, after many weeks, the paper based plan for global Jersey domination has come to fruition.

And now after waiting so long- I am going to begger off and leave them for two weeks in John the cowmans very capapble hands.
Tomorrow I am flying out to India to meet with Michael, Tony and Rona (and maybe an injured James) to look at how they do stuff there.