Aman Lakra, 63 years old and an ex-servicemen, the resident of Abhaypur village of Bareilly district (U.P.) paved the success of natural integrated farming. He is post-graduate in economics and served in Indian Army, Military Engineering Services and Life Insurance Corporation. He had shifted from Latihar district of Jharkhand to Bareilly (U.P.) in 1992 with his small family consisting the wife and a son. Presently, his son is pursuing higher education in Mechanical Engineering at Bengaluru in the Karnataka state. Initially, he had purchased 1.5 bigha land in Abhaypur village with left over saving received at the time of retirement from the government service. But, now he is the owner of 55 bigha land, absolutely earned by adopting Natural Integrated Farming System with the continuous guidance and information support of Krishi Vigyan Kendra – IVRI, Izatnagar. Subsequently, he had attended various trainings on mushroom cultivation, piggery, vermi-composting etc organized by Krishi Vigyan Kendra-IVRI. In Natural Integrated Farming System, he is rearing desi poultry bird (Aseel), duck, goat, pig, buffalo and also generating income from fish production, bee-keeping, cereal and oilseed crop cultivation, as well as fruit and vegetable cultivation in the same piece of land with all possible lowest inputs in traditional ways.
Buffalo rearing He had established varied income generating agricultural and animal husbandry based entrepreneurial units at his farm. He had 6 buffaloes, and presently 3 are in lactation, yielding 15-16 litres of milk/day. With his goodwill among the consumers and the purity of milk, he is selling milk @ Rs. 50/litre and earning Rs. 750 per day from the milk itself. 2 He is feeding buffalo twice in a day i.e. morning and evening and leaving in afternoon for pasture grazing. Mr. Lakra is investing very low on feeding since most of the feed ingredients are procured from his own farm. However, only during the period of scarcity, he needs to purchase wheat bran and straw from the market. In winter season, he is additionally providing mixture of jaggery, cumin and mustardcake twice in a week to buffaloes, as he perceived that it prevent animals from the severe cold. Berseem clover and oats of his own farm are fed to them. Neither he has vaccinated his buffaloes nor observed any infection of contagious disease in livestock so far. As we observed, buffaloes were in healthy condition and the milk production was also satisfactory. His monthly expenditure on feeding was Rs. 5000. Although, he is not using mineral mixture in buffalo feeding, but as per suggestion made by KVK personnel, he has planned to use the mineral mixture on regular basis for better health, productive and reproductive performance of buffaloes.
Poultry Rearing He is rearing 55-60 indigenous birds including very high demanded fighting bird ‘Aseel’. From this flock, he is producing on an average 25 eggs/day and selling @ Rs. 5 to 7/egg and thus earning Rs. 150 to 175/day from his economically viable and sustainable poultry units. The mortality rate in birds as reported by him is about 5-6 % which is mainly due to the predators and adverse climatic conditions only. He is also fetching handsome price by selling live birds @ Rs. 250/kg which had very high demand in vicinity. Thus, he is earning Rs. 4000 by selling live birds and Rs. 4500 to 5250/month by selling the eggs. Aseel birds as popular fighting breed of poultry has much demand in neighbouring districts viz. Badaun and Pilibhit and earning about Rs. 45,000 to 50,000 annually by selling the Aseel poultry. Poultry Rearing Unit 3 Crop residues obtained from own farm is used for feeding the poultry birds. The poultry units’ daily requirement for feeding is 5 kg bajra (pearl millet), 4 kg wheat bran and 5 kg boiled fish for the flock of 55-60 birds. Sometimes he adds duck eggs in poultry feed to increase the protein content in poultry’s diet. He purchases 5 kg of sorghum @ Rs.15/kg from the local market to fulfil the feeding requirement of poultry birds. He reported that since the inception, no major disease incidences prevailed in his semi-intensive poultry rearing unit. Further, he reported that he adds 15-20 drops of honey in drinking water as nutritional feed supplements and use neem’s water weekly as an antibiotic to poultry birds. He has made four small houses/cages for laying and hatching, where brooding and hatching process occur in quite natural situation. In day time, all birds are kept in open range and in night all are kept inside closed vicinity. Thus, due to natural integrated farming system his expenditure in poultry rearing is very minimal. Every year, he is purchasing 15 days old chicks during March and September to maintain sufficient flock size at farm.
See More: http://ivri.nic.in/Extension/Download/SuccessStory1302.pdf
Original Website Link: http://ivri.nic.in/
