Integrated Dairy Farming: Cow, Azolla, Napier, Hydroponic Fodder Farm & Biogas Design
Why Integrated Dairy Farming: All over the world, farmers work hard to earn a living. However, not all farmers make money, especially small family farmers. The emergence of integrated farming systems has enabled farmers to develop a framework for an alternative development model to improve the feasibility of small-sized farming operations.
The Combine or integrated farming system is a commonly used term to describe a more integrated approach to farming compared to monoculture approaches. It refers to agricultural systems that integrate livestock and crop production known as integrated biosystems. In this system, an inter-related set of enterprises is used so that the waste from one component becomes an input for another part of the system.
This reduces expenses and improves productivity and earnings. Therefore it utilizes the waste as a resource, farmers not only eliminate waste but also ensure an overall increase in productivity for the whole cultivation system. In this design, we concentrated only on Integrated Dairy farming. Watch this video till the end to understand completely about this system.
Let’s start with the water tank. It has to be kept at the top of an entire farm. so you can use gravitational energy to irrigate and for other purposes as well. make a tank with the help of strong pillars.
Hydroponic Fodder Room
Green fodder is important to feed livestock, but the reduced availability of land and lack of water resources. It is difficult to produce the required quantity of green fodder for a whole year. Also, the lack of quality fodder hampers the growth production, and Reproduction of livestock.
Hydroponic fodder is produced by growing seeds without soil, and with very little water; within six-seven days, the seeds are sprouted, the seedlings will be up to 30 to 35cm tall and provide highly nutritious fodder. It helps to increase disease resistance in cattle and improves milk production.
This system requires controlled room to grow. so we made a controlled conditioned room for hydroponic fodder farming.
Azolla Farm
Azolla is a free-floating, quickest growing aquatic fern on the water surface. Azolla farming helps to the farmer to reduce the cost of Livestock Feed supplements and it is useful to feed supplements for livestock. Under ideal conditions, the Azolla plant grows exponentially, doubling its biomass every three days. This will help to increase milk production.
This is Nepiar grass farm. Napier grass is one of the best fodder for cattle. Use super Napier 20 variety. It will grow 15 feet in just 30 days. This grass helps to increase milk production & increase the immune power of cattle.
Dairy Shed
You can arrange cattle from head to head or tail to the tail system. use all modern technologies like dairy fogger, cow dung cleaner, milking machines, and automatic feeder. it will help to maintain hygiene & your cattle will live a happy life.
Biogas
Cow manures usually emit methane gas, which is the main reason for ozone depletion. Make biogas from cow manure. this is how you can eliminate methane emissions. use that gas for your cooking purpose or to produce electricity. Use electricity for your farm, home & to pump water to the tank. The biogas slurry can be used as fertilizer for Nepiar grass or you can use it for other crops too.
If you adopt this technology, zero waste is produced from your entire farm, zero emission comes out of your farm and your farm is completely self-sustainable. That sounds great right. we have made separate videos on each concept discussed here. Go through our channel to learn more about each concept. We have already made videos on different concepts of Agriculture.
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FAQ
Most frequent questions and answers
416 liters of milk are obtained daily from these 35 cattle while the average price per liter is Rs 60. Likewise, one can earn a total income per day is Rs 24,960 while the total expenses per day come to Rs 14,900. Hence, the farmer gets a net profit of Rs. 3 Lakh plus per month which is a huge profit.
The costs of starting a Dairy Farm, essentially, you need at least Rs 4,00,000 to 5,00,000 to open a decent dairy farm, which can bring you a good amount of profit.
It is a Dairy Farming development project with Cow, Azolla, Napier, Hydroponic Fodder Farm, and Biogas. This may need huge investment though it’s an effective and profitable dairy farming plan.
The average annual pay for a Dairy Farm Owner in California is $40,109 an year, which is equivalent of $771/week or $3,342/month.
Definitely, the dairy farming business is profitable. To succeed in this business, at first, you need to write down all income and expenses to measure profitability.
