At a time when almost every educated youth in Kashmir wantsto join a government job for a guaranteed pay cheque, this 30-year-old fromBandipora decided to open a dairy farm putting the taboos to rest that highlyqualified people should not do any ‘odd work’.
Mir Mushtaq of Kunan village from Bandipora district aftercompleting MPhil in Psychology from Vikramadatya University, Ujjain instead ofwaiting for a government job decided to choose his own niche business as hebelieves dairy farming will bring self-sustenance in Kashmir’s milkproduction.
“I always wanted to create my own identity where I canbecome a job creator instead of a job seeker. I always wanted to contribute tomy society, rather than becoming a parasite for it,” says Mushtaq.
The decision to go for a dairy farming business by Mushtaqwas taken only after research and consultation with his friends and family. Theabundance of land and grass fields available in Mushtaq’s village provided to apositive edge for doing dairy business.
After working for his idea for more than one year, Mushtaqapproached JKEDI for financing his project.
“Initially, I was planning to setup disposable manufacturingunit a kind of anti-polythene drive where we can replace polythene by papercarry bags but J&K Pollution Control Board (PCB) did not allotted me thenon objection certificate (NOC) for the reasons, which they never explained.Therefore, I decided to go for the dairy business,” says Mushtaq.
With the help of JKEDI finances, Mshtaq established Mir DairyFarm in 2017.
“With the help of Rs 7 lakh seed capital funding from JKEDIand Rs 3 lakh from my father, I started the dairy farm. EDI also provided me20day training, where I got to learn many things. We also interacted with dairyfarm owners of Kashmir during those days, who provided me a lot of guidance,”says Mushtaq.
Mushtaq’s Mir Dairy Farm has presently 11 cows of crossbreed, all procured locally. After deducting the expenses, Mushtaq earns aboutRs 50,000 monthly from his farm. He fetches good price for his milk produces.Presently he sells a lite of milk at Rs 30 from his farm.
With 11 cows, two of them presently pregnant, Mushtaq getsabout 90 litres of milk on daily basis.
“We choose local cross-breed cows because they are wellacclimatised with the local weather and are not prone diseases and clod climatein winters. The only difficulty, which I faced initially, was milking the cows.That I over came by bringing a milking machine. But things are now becomingeasy day by day,” says Mushtaq.
With the help of two employees and support of his family,Mushtaq is able to manage his farm well. This year, he has some extra incomefrom the farm also. “I sold the calvesfor Rs 2.5 lakhs and cowdung for Rs 70,000,” Mushtaq says.
“We are traditionally zamindars and have good amount of landavailable. This provided me an edge for such kind of a venture.”
However, he cautions that getting involved in a new businesscan make you really busy and in this hustle-bustle you can sometimes make wrongchoices that can put monetary costs on your venture and bring financialinstability. Therefore, one needs to keep that in mind.
“Running a dairy farm is not everybody’s cup of tea but withhard work and dedication one can easily handle it. Every time you have to be onyour toes to keep the place clean for maintaining the health of your animalsand hygiene and quality of milk. Therefore, it involves washing, cleaning thecowsheds among the other chores. Moreover you have to keep veterinary doctorsready for checkup to be cautious about different diseases,” says Mushtaq.
Mushtaq has many future plans but his immediate task at handis to expand his farm from present 10 cows to 30 cows. For this he is buildingnew sheds.
His only advice to the youth is that they should not runafter government jobs rather they should plan to go for their own businessventures.
“Youth should plan atearly so that after completion of their studies they can start it immediatelywithout wasting time by looking for government jobs,” he says.