For the first time, a group of dairy farmers – most of them women SHG members – at Dharmathupatti village in Athoor union have set up a Farmer Producer Organsiation, (FPO) a corporate company, to ensure sustainable income for cattle growers and value addition.
The FPO, named Kuzhumai FPO, comprising 650 milk producers in 48 SHGs, has registered itself as a limited company with the Registrar of Companies in Coimbatore.
While five rural women, who have been selling milk at micro level, have become directors of the limited company, the others are shareholders, and they supply milk directly to a private dairy firm.
At present, they produce 2,750 litres of milk a day and five tonnes of cattle feed. “We don’t stop with producing milk and marketing it.
We train our growers to be self- reliant at all stages from cattle rearing and producing milk to manufacturing feed and maintaining cattle health,” says Selvarani, one of the directors.
They divided women into various groups to take care of various needs of cattle farming and milk production.
While some groups produce azolla that scaled down feed needs by 27 per cent, another team checked the quality of milk and feed.
Another group of women was engaged in disease prevention and ensuring protection measures.
A five-member team had produced five tonnes of cattle feed and supplied to 150 members at affordable cost, she added.
Kuzhumai has marketing tie-up with a Coimbatore-based private dairy farm.
