Palm Oil Yield – 2014

On one of our Palm Oil plot we recorded the yield for the year 2014.

On our 5 acre plot total yield was around 55 tones which translate to 11 tons / acre. This is 2 tones per acre less than 2013 yield.

Palm oil has to be harvested throughout the year every fortnight, but 75% of yield is between May and Sep.

Price paid to farmers was decided by OILFED based on a predefined formula. OILFED declares the price per ton every month. Price paid to farmers was in the range between 6300 – 7500 in 2014.

NREGA : Death knell for Indian agriculture and economy.

NREGA which is aimed at providing at atleast 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household in villages and improve the rural infrastructure is turning out to be a worst nightmare for Indian agriculture sector.

Abundant and affordable work force was one of the reasons why Indian agriculture was able to overcome the challenges like small holding, lack of mechanization, lack of technology advancement, etc. Now with lack of proper execution NREGA is turning one of our strengths into our weakness.

Let me explain how this is being executed in our area, every morning hundreds of people gather at the proposed work site for attendance and then spend close to couple of hours doing nothing productive and then leave. Literally they get paid for attendance. And why would anybody to go a farmer’s farm to work and get paid the same amount.

Every other sector is being adversely impacted with this. Industrialist turned Politician who got elected as Guntur MP recently quoted in parliament that when they advertised for 200 Engineering positions they received 2000 applications but when they advertised for 2000 low skilled work force they received mere 200 applications.

Does this impact just agriculture alone, no each and every sector and each and every citizen will be impacted. With increasing input costs prices of the commodities like milk, rice, wheat, pulses, cooking oil, fruits and vegetables will be increased and all of us have to pay more to feed our families. On the other hand industries which depend on agriculture for their raw material like sugar, cotton and other agricultural commodities need to pay more and eventually that is passed on to the end customer.

We can survive without any other sector but not agriculture. We need food to feed this nation. Agriculture cannot and will not stop but evolve out of this.

Hope the new governments here both in state and center will address this problem at most urgency.

Jai kisan

Dairy Show 2014

Dairy show 2014 was held at Hitex, Hyderabad between Feb 1 – 3 showcasing various breeds of cattle, latest technologies, equipment and government schemes to promote dairy sector.

Glad to say that this year native breeds like Ongole, punganur, Gir, Vechur dominated the show. Most of the progressive farmers are keen on preserving these precious breeds.

Various technologies involving Hydroponic fodder, Silage preparation, Azolla cultivation along with different kinds of fodder were on display. Hydroponic technology attracted most of the farmers but seemed expensive without any subsidies.

Equipment like Milking machines, Chaff cutters, mini bottling and packing units were on display.

Punganu Cow & Bull

Ongole Bull

Gentle Gaint - Ongole Bull

Ongole Cow

Ongole Calf 

Punganur Bull

Gir Bull

Gir Cow

Vechur Cow

Ongole Cow

Murrah Buffalo

Palm Oil Yield – 2013

On one of our Palm Oil plot we recorded the yield for the year 2013.

On our 5 acre plot total yield was around 65 tones which translate to 13 tons / acre. This is the highest recorded yield on our farm so far. Last couple of years it was around 10 tons per acre.

Palm oil has to be harvested throughout the year every fortnight, but 75% of yield is between May and Sep.

Price paid to farmers was decided by OILFED based on a predefined formula. OILFED declares the price per ton every month. Price paid to farmers was in the range between 5800 – 7900 in 2013.

Amrutha Farms portfolio

Our farm portfolio in a nutshell.

Ongole Cattle : LAM Farm

Many of the enthusiastic farmers interested in Ongole cattle have been asking me for help for purchasing Ongole cattle. Undoubtedly LAM farm, Guntur is one of the best places to buy Ongole cattle.
Here are the details, LAM farm located in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh is a government breeding center dedicated for improvement of Ongole cattle. LAM farm has close to 500 count herd of Ongole cattle.

They have auctions twice or thrice every year. Anyone can participate in the auction by paying a refundable deposit of Rs 2000. Upon winning the bid you should pay the full amount and own the animal. They advertise on local paper but the best way is call them and find out the details of the next auction frequently.

Apart from animal auction they also provide the semen of any bull of your choice. At any given time they have around 20-30 bulls. This might help farmers who can’t own a bull improve their herd.

Contact :
Cattle Project
Live Stock Research Station
Lamfarm
Guntur – 522034
Andhra Pradesh
Phone : 0863-2524085

Magic leaves : Solution for lactating problem in cattle

I got to tell this.

Recently one of our buffaloes who delivered its first calf was not able to lactate the calf. The calf was not able drink milk even after sucking for 10-20 minutes. When we consulted the local veterinary doctors they recommended a banned oxytocin injection. We had to use this injection for couple of days as we din’t have any choice.

Here is the interesting part. Heard about farmer in our neighboring village who has remedy for this when thinking of a solution for this problem. I went to him and told him the problem and he asked me to come and collect the medicine in the evening.

When I went to collect the medicine I was expecting some auyurvedic kind of medicine but to my surprise he gave me a hand full of crushed leaves and asked me to soak those leaves in curd and feed it in 3 equal doses. That moment I din’t belive it but feed that. To my surprise the problem was addressed in a day.

I went and asked him if he can tell me what those leaves are but was not ready to share. I told him that needs to be passed to the next generations but he was not ready to share.

Lets see I will keep trying to get that from him and document that somewhere so that we don’t loose such simple and great things our forefathers had.