I am following this website and similar websites for a long time and I feel this website can distinguish from othersand I feel it is time to move on to the next level. This is my suggestion to Chandra and other forum members.
Currently, any new post gets some attention and after that we keep moving on to the next post. While ideally, this is the best scenario but in the current situation we are only scratching the surface and not really dwelling deep.
What is that I suggest? Lets decide on a project by choice (the members of this forum can decide which project to take up by voting (50% +) and then we can help the project by thread bare discussing it and ensuring it is followed up. The discussion can be from the design stage, selection of plants, varieties of plants, water management, soil management, etc.
It can be in any field like Cattle Management, Poultry Management, Vegetable Farming, Fruit Farming, Timber Trees and everything else that I have missed here.
We can choose a monthly project for November and any person can contribute in terms of asking questions and providing answers. Please let me know your thought process on this and hope to hear positively.
Certainly a good idea, Padmanabhan Ganesan; I support this.
You will have to work out additional details though; ideas from everyone will help, of course!
I see several members are looking for direction; but how could we ensure such ideas have the necessary resource commitment too?
I suspect we do not have so many requirements on the board that are ready for execution. Let me gather my thoughts a little more anyway.
All other thoughts from everyone welcome of course.
Takeup each project in one month and share the knowledge between the farmnest members, that will help the new members. Provide as much info as possible. Links to the website, design of the project, report of the project. I saw few members in the farmnest are selling the reports for 1000rs or 2000rs but they are available free in the internet.
Well I can put forth my project for discussion herein. We have around 3.8 acres of land near Coimbatore,TN. We have fenced it, got it a commercial electricity connection (currently the TN government is not accepting request for other connections easily). The project plan is to start with 40 cows and sell milk directly. The available 3.8 acres of land will only be used for the following.
Cowshed
Silage units
Labor housing
Office
Customized milking unit for 2 cows (electric milking machine available at 38000 Rs to 40K)
Azolla pits (15 nos)
Hay stacking
Maternity barn + calf shed - 2 animals (planned for later)
Quarantine barn - 2 animals
Bio-gas unit
We also decided on the following.
Lease a 10 acre land for growing fodder (first for making TMR, silage, hay etc)
Buy solar powered lighting for shed and farm to reduce input cost
Shift to bio-gas based electricity generation (have seen big units, need to know what is the minimum no of cows required for this to be run successfully, where to buy the generators etc)
These will reduce of input costs, then we have decided to go in for tripartite agreement with the banks and local unemployed youth to start standalone booths under NABARD scheme to increase presence in the town that we are in and for better pricing.
Can we discuss this project? Something like a SWOT would be great.
At present am in Pvt sector in urban life and in 35yrs age. Have very nice salary packages and family of wife + 2 kids. basically from kerala.
Now after very very long study, talking and taking guidance from all you esteemed members, I have sum of a raw plan like below:-
a) I have 4 acere land in Kerala where 1 acer available for fodder cultivation. So start a diary farm of 10 cows immediatly reaching in kerala after fodder cultivation done, so min cash flow in comparison to what salary I was drawing can be started. Gradually increase cow heard to 100 and hire more land for fodder cultivation.
b) At present itself identified cultivated land 30 acere in tamiland (very close to KL boarder) and in process to buy we all three friends. Land has cultivation of some coconut, amla, and some wild trees. In between setting up diary farm in kerala my target is increase more intergated farming in this land adding more cocount trees (at present have 700) , aracnut , and in integration done banana plantation. checking possibility of adding intercrop with Coco and nut mug. that will be decided after taking help from agri officer near by. adding 50-100 goats and back yard chicken rearing in the farm. Hope with this model we 3 partners can atleast comply our passion and earn some income out of it. there is labour couple available in farm and we plan to do 2days in week stay in farm for supervision and involvment,. the land is located nr Tenkasi and two bore well in land for irregation. all fenced with solar system.
Above land in TN with to and from of 300km , I think in future if needed green fodder can be accessed from TN too. Need to learn commercial viability with own transportation arrangement.
Request members to put/help SWOT of this plan. Kindly consider we all 3 persons quitting a reasonably paid job to venture in to this.
Instead of jumping directly, let’s decide on the major topics first. I will give some examples below.
Cattle Farming
Poultry Farming
Timber Farming
Fruit Farming
Vegetable Farming
Integrated Farming
Traditional Farming like Paddy, Sugarcane etc
Other topics
Dear Chandra,
How to go about doing a poll on these topics first? Help us on this. Lets do a collection of topics under each category and then open the same for the members to vote.
Members,
Chandra will enable the same and while we will keep him busy on this, request members to come forward with the broad topics and put the individual needs of members under these categories. Once the poll is opened, we will decide the one broad topic and will decide the individual topic as well. Mostly the individual topic will cover more or less the broad topic and this will help cover the many individual topics under the broad topic. I hope this makes sense.
If anybody has a different view, please share them and we can discuss and finalize the same by 30th Oct. So that the final voting can happen on the last day of the month or extend it by the 1st week of Nov.
I would prefer start thread on each subject with its SWOT analysis by experts and members. Voting will give statics or just tips of inner thoughts but may not be a deep thought. So we may not be able to proceed for implementation just on basis of on line voting. Environment and situation may case to case different. A cattle farming in Kerala may not be suitable for Tamilnadu. Or cattle farming suitable for a traditional farmer or organic farmer may not be exactly fit for a enterprenuer look for commercial diary farming. So I would suggest let us open thread for each subject separately and whenever any new member comes up with same subject direct him to refer the thread and if practically possible with more moderators do not allow to post new threads on same threads untill unless it has any more relevance than already posted thread.
for better forum rules and refinement I would strongly suggest kindly refer a forum know as team bhp which is basically handle on vehicles and drive. but it is an excellent example to model in forum handling in various subject and now most of the automobile companies really watch for intelligent inputs from said forum. Due not less forum rules and liberated postings we can see that at present how agriculture information forum vulnerable to overnight fly consultants, marketing persons…etc instead of a concrete knowledge resource for agriculture.
I wish get this forum more strict to knowledge sharing, and a pioneer to drive all internet farming person to real farming.
Just to add on a little bit more, how do we create the topics first by members?(Question to Chandra) and how does members add their individual queries under each topic? (Question to Chandra)
Once this is established, we will go to the next step of voting. We will come to that a little bit later, most probably in the next month? By that time, each member can post their comments, suggestions, etc to take this forward.
*This topic can list all such project evaluation topics in its first post. Moderators can edit it time to time to add new topics that fall into this category to the list.
*Individual topics can be created by any member.
*An individual project topic could be about a project idea in a certain set of conditions. E.g., a 5 acre organic mango orchard at Vizag with a maximum budget of Rs. x, a 20 cow dairy farm with 50% HF at Bangalore using hydroponic fodder etc.
*The posts under the topic could address all aspects of the project. E.g., economics, soil, plant material, planting methods, irrigation, plant protection, labour, marketing, risks, SWOT, policy, incentives etc. keeping in view the preferences and bounds set by the topic initiator
*This method does not need any voting or query listing at once. Multiple project threads can run in parallel and interested folks participate in each ongoing discussion to arrive at an ideal plan
*Selected member(s) can lead the discussion so all key aspects are covered[/ul]
I am very much there. The Poll information has not provided like any requirements and hence nothing to work on. The members has to come foward and participate more.