Another wanna be farmer: Decision Taken - Want to go rural!

Agri…Thanks. I agree that one has to exactly locate land to fix on the location specific variables.

However, there are many other issues which are common everywhere…those are the ones that I am taking up now. Actually, I am leaving next month second week for Rajasthan & MP to actually see some lands, talk to farmers in the locale and visit local kvk & agri univ.

March Second week is slated for Mah. & AP/TN. I have already started correspondence/phone calls to land brokers in these places & already have some lands in all these 5 states on offer.

Once I have done a round…I will know my mind & local conditions in all of these places much better.

However, I personally feel that any business is 75 planning, 10% execution and 15% revaluation & reorientation. It is these areas that I am trying to pin-point.

e.g. before talking to savera, I was really half thinking about buying a second-hand JCB, for initial digging as well as routine loading of compost, fodder etc. Now that is being revaluated. Also, I had totally ruled out drip irrigation…now I am evaluating the same for part of the operation. Also…I am giving more value to the labour component now, compared to before…when I thought…kuch jyaada paise dene padenge…aur kya? In fact, I was more worried about unionism type labour attitude than availability…now I know even availability may be a big issue, so am looking at that more closely than before.

Similarly, there are some other aspects…that I am intentionally posting slowly, as each would then get more attention than if I posted them all together in one long post!

I am sure Chandra will be more happier with a long & thorough thread…that’s what he wants for his board…gooood discussions…don’t you…Chandra?

With rgds.
Sanjay.

Brijesh, Agri

Since the two of you are the one discussing dairy on this thread…I am a bit confused about the viability part.

Can you guys make this a bit clear?

I am specifically looking for two answers:

  1. Minimum size of the herd to be profitable? & rough computation for the same. Feed grown by the farm itself at zero value is ok by me, but would also like to know if that feed is costed at maybe just slightly below market price, what is the outcome?
  2. What about the cow selection? Would Desi Cow would work the same? I am more interested in the Desi Cow because that is the one considered for these natural farming fundas that I want to try out.

Anyways, I will be keying in another post tomorrow for my farming practices plan. Will need to rope in people like cowherd to jump in the thread then :wink:

Meanwhile I hope I can have answer to this…as dairy is part of my integrated farming plan.

Sanjay.

Does this read about 1 Laks/month or do I need to go back to my Mrs. Masters, my english school teacher :wink: ?

What I am looking to do is setup an integrated natural farm, mostly horticultural orchard crops & herbs plus veggies as the cash cow, till it stands up on its own, setup in a sort of forest approach promoted by permaculture. As part of the overall permaculture plan, I wish to integrate cows, goats, hens, ducks, and honeybees into the project.

Will determine numbers of each component as required. Basic approach would be natural farming in the sense of the use of Cow output based augmentation of micro-organisms and again cow output based pesticides (Sh. Subhash Palekar’s recipes) . Therefore for the dairy portion, I am evaluating to do with Desi Cows….further information required here for deciding if dairy with desi cows as a separate profit center would be feasible or will one have to keep a separate set of cows for getting gobar & gomutra.

Where I would like to differ is in heavy composting of the soil in the initial years. Despite starting a 100 acre farm, with say 90 acre actual growing area (minus ponds, roads and other facilities), I’d like to add an inch of compost to the soil a year for at least three years….or till I think its not needed…earlier or later.

Am looking for information on infrastructure required for generating enough compost to cover one inch/year for 90/100 acres and growing materials in-house for that….be it manure (by having more cows) or hay or whatever. I’d like to state here that the farms agro waste remains on the farm floor as mulch. This project is to add to it.

I am looking for inputs here from people like cowherd etc., who are already doing natural farming, composting, green manuring (need yet to learn about green manuring) & etc.

As I am looking for low cost land, I am sure to get land that will need augmentation. So, in addition to doing the planting, I am going to take a serious responsibility for building (at a fast pace) a proliferate habitat for microflora and the earthworms. And so, I will be a committed user of mulching.

As I said earlier, I will be creating a big acre size pond to hold rainwater….augmented, as required from other sources. I would like to populate this lake with trophy/pretty fish….so looking for resources for the same too.

Request inputs on these areas individually, maybe how to stage and add sequentially, pros & cons of having each component.

Request be minute, be harsh, be patient……but please do comment….my target is not to do all this at once…only to plan the project with all this and build them in the project plan & business plan and reserve funds and also space on the ground for them, where required, so that later changes are not required.

My thanks in advance to all.

Yes, in only some pockets though. You will need to carefully evaluate water availability, the documents etc. however.
Land in other areas of AP has gone out of bounds in pricing.

[quote=brijesh]
AP is good however water is a major problem (chandra will be able to guide you on that)[/quote]

That is correct. Some areas in Rayalaseema and Telangana aren’t good in ground water. As I said above you will need to do the search in an area where water is available; areas which have a canal or river near by are too expensive.

TNAU is easily the most proactive as far as I can see!

That is a huge parcel, which can only be acquired and managed as a company I think. I guess only a professional fully staffed org can handle all of it. It is also quite rare to find such a piece available readily and clean.

Hi Brijesh. Not to sound discouraging, but I have tried exactly that before for land procurement with only poor results for a few reasons. It is much easier to get 10 or 20 acres than get 200 acres (especially one that is is genuine), members have varying interests that often kills the overall idea, sometimes you have members who only want to tap into the group’s benefits without sharing their own information or expertise, land distribution is super difficult with no land being a perfect square that can be split equally and everyone wants the east corner with the two roads, guys drop off when you are ready to go with a deal bringing you to square 1 etc. etc. With some of this kind of experience, I have stuck to go alone now, with a guy or two who tag along than partner - meaning I find the land and take it, any thing beyond what I need in the piece or a surrounding bit I find will certainly be forwarded to another guy. We start with zero expectations, and might collaborate later on.

But if you find folks who have similar ideas, please do pursue the idea, my experience could be a one off :slight_smile:

I can understand where agri_exec is coming from (losing the flour while dreaming about what to do with it story eh!), but again, each one’s approach to do something is different. So if it useful information, why not! Keep it going.

Cheers,
Chandra

There is no thumb rule for minimum herd size to be profitable. You can have one cow and still be profitable. If you are asking me how much to make decent money (if you think its decent enough), i would say 100 HF cows will fetch you about 2-3 lakhs per month. A 100 cow farm will go for about 1 crore to set up, cost of land excluded. You will need 20 acres of land to grow fodder for 100 cows.

Fodder… Imo, Even if you are growing your own fodder, you cannot treat it as “slightly below market price”. Growing fodder on 20 acres costs money. So when you draw up your accounts you have to treat fodder costs at “transfer price”.

Its completely your choice. The desi cows yield less milk as compared to HF or Jerseys. Maybe you can have a mix of desi and HF/Jersey cows.

I don’t think so.

ok

Thanks for the dairy inputs…agri.

Chandra…I have already asked cowherd to give his opinions about my issues. Could you please ask other similar successful Natural farmers to give their inputs, or perhaps give me their names & I’ll PM them.

I especially want their input on my yesterday morning’s post.

Thanks.

I think that’s a very valid series of issues that are bound to happen.

In almost all the cases, where I have seen such a thing happen the land has been purchased jointly and the buyers have divided the plots but the decision of ownership of each plot has either been decided through a lottery or a private auction deciding premium on a particular parcel of land.

In other cases corporate structures have been formed to own the land jointly, where neither of the owners are taking farming as their primary business and a manager has been hired to farm and all owners are frequent visitors…mostly together.

That said, its not impossible…but very, very improbable, especially with unrelated parties buying land together.

BTW, any indicative costs for cows, goats, hens & ducks etc.?

Hi Sanjay, look for the posters in the farmnest.com/forum/natural-farmi … c-farming/ board and you should find some.
cowherd is a little sore about some of the unsubstantiated posts on the board and rightly so, so there is some cajoling needed to grab him back. :-\

Thanks.

[quote=Chandra]
cowherd is a little sore about some of the unsubstantiated posts on the board and rightly so, so there is some cajoling needed to grab him back. :-\
[/quote]That’s too bad. When I started to look into Agriculture…I was reviewing Agri forums to peruse regularly…it was cowherd’s detailed posts about natural farming that caused me to register in to this one!

Agri_exec

these are just thoughts and options that I am personally evaluating for my own farm venture. I have put these here in response to some of the queries on similar lines

As i have said time and again on my replies again, these are just sampling figurer and strategies that could be followed etc and no one should take these numbers to be an exact…at the best these can serve as some kind of starting approximations for people who are interested in making some kind of templates or who would like to look at various options etc

everyone has a different view or approach in mind and to be very honest there is no silver bullet or formula…your approach is perhaps land driven and then something else…mine something else and perhaps others are following a different train of thought

the purpose of boards and discussions like these are to put various thoughts that people are having into text so that any useful information can be gleaned or ideas shaped by viewing these

about the dairy

the cost of cows can be treated as capital expenses and depreciation claimed on the same. it is possible to make a 45%-50% net profit in operations…yes ROI overall will be in the range of 25% to 30%

agricultureinformation.com/f … iry-4.html

Nikhil N is making a profit of around 40% profit with 15 cows, by incurring costs of mixing own customised feed costing Rs. 14 / kg and feeding green grass procured from outside @ Rs. 1.20 / kg.

again I will not hold him to these figures but I get some kind of approximation based on the data he has shared

Also you can search for posts by manas reddy who has a farm in andhra / karnataka border (Rameshwaram mandal around 100 kms from bangalore, manas works in bangalore you can meet him if you are from around there)

My cycle is around 400 days not 450 because the breeds that I am lookin at run a 300 days milking cycle and 90 days dry cycle. again this dairy bit was added for a wider view on integrated approach

Personally I have seen many lands (physically) and am working with the university on this venture and I have reached a conclusion where I think I will try to get most of the information that I can …while dealing with the land aquisition in parallel…based on the data collected, interviews down and farmers met so far I have a pretty clear idea of what I will be able to do and what I want to do…so this has shaped the criteria for land procurement for me personally

at this juncture no fact or figure is right nobody here is claiming accuracy , i apologize if any of the information that I have put in seems to potray actual figures / returns

about bananas:

I have physically met 2 farmers in ramanad / arupkotai belt, one guy in coimbatore (kadambur area farm) and the TNAU agri business head coimbatore who cultivates G9 for sale in his personal farm (managed by a farmer manager type of guy)

none of these people above take ratoons first or second citing poor yield and weaker market for ratoon yields, will i be deciding on banana strategy based on the above experince…maybe yes maybe no but the it has given me something to think about which is of more value to me

i would not be working on the transfer pricing model if I go in for the dairy, the dairy will be independently operated by someone else and my farm will be selling fodder to the dairy. my main farm will be in the pure business of growing

as long as i am growing something it is tax free (especially fodder), dairy is tax free today but have no idea on how the goverment will treat it in the future (they can put in slabs based production capacity, there still seems to be some lacunea on taxation on dairy income…but again agri tax seems to be a state level decision so this can also play a role )

this is option one I have for dairy if I will decide to target 1000+ litres production capacity a day, if it is going to be a lot less than that then my second option would be more straightforward

cheers
brijesh

Brijesh,

You simply cannot claim depreciation on livestock. Depreciation will be calculated only on your shed/machinery etc.

Dont bother with apologies man. We are here to exchange views, thoughts and good info.

Dairy is not likely to be taxed in India atleast for the next 15 years as the country is short of milk supply. Fyi, At the moment, Dairy is tax free only for individuals i.e if you are running a dairy in individual capacity then there are no taxes but if you register as a company then you will be liable to pay taxes. So trick is to never register your dairy business. Make it a legal entity and you will have to pay taxes :frowning:

Thats a 100 cows. What kind of capital outlay are you looking at apart from land? Just curious.
When I did my project report, I was easily looking at excess of 1 crore to set up 100 cow dairy with annual net returns of 25-30%.

Very well said, agri_exec.
Let us continue this great discussion and consciously ensure we are not stepping on any one’s toes inadvertently.
Cheers.

So basically an typical expenditure sheet would look like the following

Land cost + stamp duty + registration ← Fixed costs

Approximations for some infrastructure costs / requirements on the higher side

Fencing (chain link) - 12000/acre (approximation based on 50-100 acres)
Fencing (barbed wire) - 7500/acre (same as above)
Borewell (dig) - 75000
Borewell (erection) - 75000
Land clearing - 10000/acre
Tractor (Average to include all tractor based activities) - 5000/acre
Quarters (Buildings, Godowns etc) - 1250/sq.ft
Drip Irrigation - 25000/acre
Non Drip Irrigation (sprinkler/rain-gun/basin etc) - 15000/acre
EB (end to end) - 100000
Surface Tank – ?/litre
Sub Surface Tank (Sintex type sump) – ?/litre
Underwater Tank (Sintex types) – ?/litre
Recharge Pit / Trench (rainwater harversting for borewells) – ?
Pond – ?
Vermicompost Unit – ? (Specify unit size based on production capacity/year)
Low cost green house (polyhouse) – ?/sq.mt
Med cost green house (polyhouse) – ?/sq.mt
High cost green house (polyhouse) – ?/sq.mt
low cost cowshed (loose housing) – ?/sq.ft
low cost cowshed (tie stall) – ?/sq.ft

May have missed items, please update to the best of your knowledge

Some of these items can also be classified as must,should,could (nice to have), wont (strategy, circumstance specific)

I believe the above list in its present form or after inputs can give a idea of the intial investment cost for wannabe farmers like me. some of the items can be incremental cost e.g. I buy 100 acres but only develop 30 acres or so for first 3-4 years

regards,
Brijesh

1 Like

I have been tracking this tread for a while and I would like to contribute to it with my thoughts and perspectives that I have observed and learned.

Firstly, I would like to establish a rough framework for guiding my agricultural decisions which are as follows.

1. - Classifying and estimating the strata’s of society based on income group

12.5 Lacks/p.a ----------- qualifies as higher income group within the middle class
20 L/p.a -------------------- qualifies as higher income group
50L /p.a ----------------- qualifies as Luxury class income group…… one step ahead of the higher income group

These would be some of my targets to achieve

2. – Assessing the business based upon the following parameters.

1- Opportunity
2- Scalability
3- Competition
4- Valuation
5- Management.

Each of these need to be carefully thought over and all actions should ideally justify all of them.

3. - There are three lines of business in the agriculture business.

1- Investment – i.e. capital investment in land
2- Leasing – i.e leasing of agriculture business.
3- The actual activity of farming, cultivation and selling of produce.

4. - Certain biases and perception that I hold

Understanding and managing machines is much simpler and better than understanding and managing labor……… So my bias would be towards mechanized farming /automation and best use of technology until unless somebody can give me a better cost –benefit explanation to go against ……

Labor Management ……. Is Time consuming and complicated so my bias would be towards hiring more skilled/ or the best non- skilled labor and paying the lucrative compensation package…

I would want to ensure that the net profitability always is above 20% p.a from the sum total of every aspect of agribiz.
And that I break even in approximately 3.5 yrs …… i.e respecting the rule of 72 …… 72/20 = 3.5 yrs approx.

5.- My idea of logic has two parts

Present logic that deal with all validated facts and figures of the past and present but without assumptions.

And Future logic based upon present logic + assumptions + future vision.

So based upon the abovementioned frame work my thoughts regarding agribiz are as follows.

Buying land …… the most critical decision ………main parameters for evaluation would be location, cost and size and the proposed future utilization of it. I would want to achieve diversification in both …i.e …. The actual lines of biz…….i.e. investment + leasing + cultivation and in the actual cultivation (monoculture + cash crops + dairy farming).

I would want to buy two separate chunks /Pieces of land ………such that

The first chunk should be one large one where I can practice mechanized wheat farming + others or lease it or do both. Diary farming would also be done on this chunk. In this chunk location has less importance but size and cost have more.

The second chunk would be where I would practice cultivating cash crops and should ideally be close to the market place that is close to the consumption centre so I wouldn’t mind paying the extra buck provided it covers it thru good profit margins.( idea is to start off Floricuture / growing vegetables here in green/Polyhouse)……(just saw the other day a rose cultivator increasing is per acre productivity yield by 5 time with the help of green houses)

And secondly …… they should be located such that they both are reachable and manageable in a single day ideally.

Keeping the abovementioned concept in mind and after some casual research I have zero in on Rajasthan state ……The things that excite me about Rajasthan are the place Pushkar and Ajmer. Being religious place there is constant demand for flowers and fruits to certain extent and Jaipur a major consumption centre for other cash crops.( have a look of their relative location on google maps )

However ---- land in Rajasthan also brings in their certain limitation and challenges also which include…… extreme weather , availability of water and the denial of local law barring non rajasthani from buying agricultural land having access to irrigated water.

But inspite of these challenges and based upon a superficial casual investigation of farmlands price ……. The benefits of valuation outnumber the locational challenges.

Besides in the future may be Farmlands in Rajasthan could be used also as energy farms ………… with the help solar energy given the extreme summers and sunshine and wind energy given the evolution of non – conventional horizontal wind mills ( willl post a link regarding these in the future)

Besides this some other things that I would want readers of this post to learn/explore are

Robotic farming … please read the article on this link………

singularityhub.com/2011/01/31/au … ium-video/

Next is the idea to setup a biogass processing and compressor system …… something that compress biogas to make compressed bio gass (CNB)cylinder which can be used for generators /gysers and cooking ……. Although I would prefer one that uses cowdunk only. Would want to use this alongside dairy farming ……. and I would like to know at what rate this residual organic manure that is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus if I am not mistaken is sold at.

A brief survey on the net say that on an average each cow produce 62 kg of cow dunk which in turn also produce 60 odd units of CNB…… our home gas cyclinder is about 15 -17 odd units so in a year a cow gives approximately enough CNB to make 4 cyclinder ……. Multiply this with 20 cows and we have 80 cyclinders ………

And besides cow dunk can also be bought from outside and processed ……

Due to lack of time I could not devote much time on this subject but I would want somebody to do a online survey on this …… and shed some light by sharing filtered knowledge and some critical insights how to make this a viable workable and scalable.

Next is identify and learn from people who have already established and refined their cash crop farming ……….have a look at the below mentioned link ……… the claims of this gentlemen seem to be impressive …….would like u all to read and comment on this

vermaagri.com/services.html

Next is I would want one of u if possible ……… download install and play this computer game farming simulator 2011……. And update this thread about what it is all about and its utility( u will get this game online……for free … if u know where to look)…….

Next I would want somebody to contribute with regards to mechanized farming ……. I what to explore the idea / options of mechanized farming on large low cost farmlands ……… and if possible I would want to know specifically about mechanized cotton farming …… something not practiced in India and also mechanized sugar cane farming

Next is about farming management control systems devoted towards preventing theft and pilferage of agricultural produce thru labor and other causes and the checks and balances required to enable the same.

Next is the use of GPS w.r.t to Indian farming environment

And lastly …. Now that I have said a lot …something about me …… I grew up in the concrete jungles of Mumbai and for the last 3.5 year have been living in Punjab like a Nomad ……. Where this bug of agri biz has bitten me. I have just completed my mba in finance .Currently I am on the look out for a good job and in the future definitely want to startup some agri biz…………

With this long post that took me more than 8 hours to make …… ::);D :slight_smile: :wink:I am hoping to make some likeminded friends …….with whom i can share and pursue my new passion and hobby … agri biz. ;D :slight_smile: :wink:

I hope u find this post intellectually stimulating and would like all of u to contribute to it

Regards.

Welcome to the forum!!