Tellachery goats for sale!

We are happy to announce that we completed 1 year of goat ops last week. It has been an incredible journey so far, with a lot of lessons learned along the way.  In the next few weeks, we will elaborate more on our learnings with commentary on practice vs theory of goat operations.

In the meanwhile, we have about 40 Tellacherry goats, ranging from 6 months to 1.5 years for sale. Kindly contact us if you are setting up a new farm or have a requirement for live goat. We are giving great pedigree animals, with documented vaccinations, well fed and maintained.

Call 91 94450 76595

PAVM Moringa saplings for sale

It is that time of the year when Moringa saplings should be planted. Good quality seedlings germinated from farm harvested PAVM seeds are available for sale. Any cultivators looking to setup or expand their plantations may contact us for seedlings. Buyers can request a visit to our Moringa acreages and seek cultivation guidance / clarifications from our farm supervisors. Please reach out at 94450-76595 or mail us at info@saverafarms.com.

Rate per sapling is Rs 15/- each with volume discounts for order size of more than 1000 saplings.

Pomegranate cultivation - Yay or Nay...

We have been mulling over the idea of planting a couple of acres of Pomegranate as a pilot this year. Just wanted to touch base with the blog followers if they or somebody else they know is knowledgeable about cultivation aspects of the crop.

There has been a sudden increase in cultivation, awareness and consumption in the last few years and may be it is a good time to jump into the 'pomegranate bandwagon'. Although Maharashtra is a leader in cultivation, TN is in top 5 states in India. There is limited information online, which makes it hard to research upon.

One of our followers is planning to plant this season. I would appreciate if others could share information as well.

Looking for 'A Few Good Men' for the Savera Farms team!

Those of you who have seen the 1992 military classic 'A Few Good Men' would remember my favorite quote from this movie - You can't handle the truth! The truth of our reality is that we are looking for motivated and qualified team members and it has been hard to find them. This is also part of the reason why we have been absent for the last few months from Blog-sphere. Last few months have been very busy for us with our first Mango season and commercial production finally underway for Moringa leaves. We are looking to grow our small team and would love to hire a few more managers.

 

Our immediate resource needs are : 

Farm Operations Manager : This person will manage parts of our Mango and Moringa plantations and work with existing farm managers. Responsibilities will include overseeing farm activities, harvest processing, managing irrigation tasks, equipment maintenance and overall responsibility of directing daily labor. Ideal candidate should have related experience, preferably under 35 years of age with high energy. Candidates will need to be fluent in English & Tamil.  Competitive pay rate will be offered and will be based on experience and skills. We provide upgraded accommodations and transportation for our staff. Work location would be our farms in Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu.

Marketing Associate : We are also looking for a Marketing Associates for our Chennai operations. Primary responsibility will be managing existing clients. This will include regular order entry, demand planning, QC and managing delivery of produce. Candidate should be familiar and open to learning basic accounting for invoicing and payment collections. Ideal candidate would have experience with developing new clients in Chennai area for fresh fruits and herbal products. Candidates with background in sales and marketing for food products would be preferred but this is not a requirement. Base compensation would be guaranteed with sales bonus as part of performance incentives. Local transporation would be provided. No accommodation will be provided.

We are reaching out to our readers for their trusted referrals. Please keep our opportunities in mind for those looking to similar employment. For more details, always feel free to drop us a note at saverafarms@gmail.com or info@saverafarms.com. These are exciting times at Savera Farms and we want you to be a part of it!

12 Things I Want To Teach My Child

We follow a few bloggers in the agri industry and others for occasional intellectual clarity. Very few of them have the verbal prowess to provide concise meaningful advice - Dharmesh is one of those few. This article from Dharmesh Shah was well written and stuck with us. Hope you enjoy it too!

1. Gather knowledge, but also gather knowledgeable people.
You can't know everything. But you can know enough smart people that together collectively know most of what you need to know. Together, you will be able to do almost anything.

2. The memory of work disappears like the memory of pain – all anyone remembers are results.
Experience is valuable – to you. Experience yields skill and skill helps you do things and get results.
Focus on racking up achievements, not just years of service.

3. Take responsibility for outcomes.
Learn to take responsibility when something doesn’t go well. Then immediately start thinking of ways you will do better next time.

4. Share credit for accomplishments.
Most of your great accomplishments will be the result of both your efforts and those of others. Learn to recognize this -- and share the credit.

5. Celebrate your achievements, then move on.
When you achieve something, it's important to take a moment, reflect — and even celebrate sometimes. Be gracious, be appreciative, be thankful… but always feel you could do even better.

6. Don’t expect life to be fair. Life just is.
You will often think “That’s just not fair…” especially when you didn’t get your way or things didn’t turn out like you hoped. Never expect life to be fair. You may not always receive what you put in, but roughly speaking the more you put in the more you will receive. Which is fair enough.

7. See ‘boring’ as a springboard to success.
What appears to be the boring thing to do is almost always the responsible thing to do. The people who achieve the most do a lot more of the boring stuff. Routine, rigor, attention to detail, chugging away day after day... those are the path to eventual success.

8. Don’t think you’ll always get a trophy.
Everyone doesn’t deserve recognition. Everyone doesn’t deserve praise. If you want a trophy, earn a trophy. You’ll enjoy it a lot more than any of those participation trophies you tossed in your closet.

9. Don’t expect someone else to boost your self esteem.
No one will automatically believe in you. Why should they if you haven’t done anything yet? If you want to feel great about yourself, achieve something great. In the meantime, use any feelings of inadequacy to make you work harder.

10. Understand that amazing overnight success is amazingly rare. And overrated.
Even if you could strike gold in a few months, are you prepared to manage that gold? Early struggles, effort, and desperation forms a valuable foundation for long-term success.Because there will always be adversity.

11. Know when to stand-out and when to fit in.
School was designed to help you figure out who you are. Now, school’s out. No one will help you find yourself. Learn to be part of a team and to fit in when necessary. Once you do, the people around you will be more than happy for your individuality to start shining through.

12. Count yourself lucky to have 3 or 4 great friends.
Social networks are fun, but your real friends are the people who will take your calls at 4 in the morning. And actually listen to you. And actually help you. Work hard to find them. Work harder to keep them.

Credits : Dharmesh Shah 

Future belongs to nations with grains not guns

MS Swaminathan is one of the pioneers of India's Green Revolution. While most of us have only read about the Green Revolution and even fewer have actually experienced the impact, Swaminathan has lived through it. Giving up on a lucrative career in medicine, he pursued Agriculture Research and went on to become an architect of India's paradigm shift from being a grain deficit state to surplus in less than 30 years.

NDTV recently honored Swaminathan among the 25 greatest living Indians. In this recent interview several interesting points were discussed. We found the interview a grounding experience because it was a good reality check with a peek from the past. It is clear that the current, younger generation is not very interested in pursuing the agri sector and maybe rightly so with volatile agricultural returns and easier wage alternatives. However, in this interview Swaminathan reiterates the struggles faced by our predecessors to attain our current state of self-sufficiency and shares his opinion about what the future may hold.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
George Bernard Shaw
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/past.html#YIGPtxpoMX0W7BWf.99

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, 
but by the responsibility for our future.

                                                                       

                                                                            -  George Bernard Shaw

Best wishes for a great 2014!

As the past year fades away, we wish for our friends, supporters and partners-in-passion a new year which brings with it new hope and greater resolve. May 2014 be another year when each of us grows in our pursuits, reach great heights and accomplish the goals which escaped us in the year past.

For us 2013 was a year when Techie2Aggie blossomed as a channel for Savera Farms to seek collaborators, connect with future partners and establish a meaningful trade networks. We knew that our readers are often from locations far, far away from Sivagangai and even India. A few days, before new years day, we sat down to look at our Cluster Map for 2013 and were fascinated by the expanse of nations which had visited Techie2Aggie. Appreciating the power and reach of internet was never more tangible for us.

To everyone who has been an active participant on this blog, we thank you. We always look for community engagement and reader feedback to our postings. Many of you respond with great questions and hopefully we were able to answer a few of them. Some of you provided us practical advice and guided us towards better operations, again we appreciate the engagement and support.

Let's keep it going for the 5th year in a row!

Agriculture Innovators and Disruptive Technology

Over the past year, we came across several agriculture innovations and related start ups. Most of these services are localized to their area of origin while others are truly ground breaking and still in beta mode. Looking at the world vegetation and water risk charts below, it is not surprising that most of these innovations come from location with water deficit. Along the same lines, it is to be expected that most research is focusing on revitalizing barren landscapes and developing creative irrigation methods. 

Worldwide vegetation cover

 Global water deficient area

Despite varying degree of product maturity, we felt all of these were interesting and full of promise. Below we share a couple of such companies which our community may find interesting or even inspiring. Power to the pioneers!

Just Awesome

International Fertilizer Development Center  (www.ifdc.org)
Fertlizer Deep Placement (FDP) technology is a simple technology spreading very rapidly in Bangladesh and is being up scaled up in other Asian countries for production of rice and other crops. They claim the results to date to be excellent. In Bangladesh about 2.8 million ha involving more than 4 million farmers is under FDP technology. With flood irrigation, farmers are using 35% less urea fertilizer and yet getting 15-18% increase in yield.

Aquanue (www.aquanue.com)
Aquanue’s SICRA system is a proven aquaculture technology that has been developed over the past 40 years. The aquaculture system can grow high-value groupers (and other species) in half the time taken in sea cage systems, with one-tenth the mortality. The business is modular, scalable, organic, and has a low environmental footprint.

Really Cool..

iCow (www.icow.co.ke)
iCow is a mobile phone based agricultural platform aimed to increase small scale farmer productivity at the same time reducing risks. This platform sports the worlds first mobile cow calendar monitoring the gestation cycle of the cow. Farmers claim to increase milk yields by up to 3 liters per animal after using iCow for 7 months. With a name like 'iCow', our bovine friends are feeling the Steve Jobs affect as well..

XA Warehouse Farming (www.verticalfarms.com.au)
This is an automated growing system that is scalable to meet demand with low labor, power and water inputs, and high crop yields. The focus is on urban farming, often in warehouse location, with the intent of designing high yielding systems for rapid ROI.

Love to try it!

Coolplanet (www.coolplanet.com)
Poised to revolutionize the energy and agricultural industries with its clean energy system, Cool Planet has developed a patented process that converts non-food biomass into gasoline. The benefits? Less dependence on importing oil, improvements to agriculture and impacting climate change. The clean, renewable fuel can be distributed and used in today’s vehicles with no change to existing infrastructure.

BioLumic (www.biolumic.com)
Their claim is an innovative new UV lighting technology that provides the ability to control plant size, growth and increase stress tolerance. Though limited to Greenhouse applications and indoor cultivation, their product could be god-send for greenhouse operators in significantly increasing yeild and reducing time-to-market.

On a closing note, some may notice that none of the above are Indian organizations. However, this does not mean that grass-root innovation does not occur all over India - the fact is probably quite the contrary. Unfortunately, access to such information is not always easy. Our readers should feel free to use this forum and can take the initiative to bring those to light for greater collaboration and information sharing with our community.

Credits : Maps of the world

Blog Access Issues : Domain Transfer

We are changing homes..and the move is always a little painful!

Some of our readers may have noticed that over the past two days our blog and email has been experiencing access issues. That is because we decided to transfer our domains. Access to the blog using saverafarms.com is restricted at the moment while we switch our domain registrars and hosting service.

While access via saverafarms.com and info@saverafarms.com will be restored no later than Dec 10, 2013, access to the blog is available via the alternate URL : http://techie2aggie.blogspot.com. For immediate email needs, please use saverafarms@gmail.com.

Apologies for the inconvenience and keep blogging!

Updates : 

12/8 : Our email is back up, feel free to reach out to us on info@saverafarms.com
12/9 : Access to www.saverafarms.com has been restored as well. 

In the news : Supply Shortage for Meat Animals

Savera Farms started their goat operations earlier this year but we have been studying the domestic meat market for close to 2 years now. Despite several non-vegetarians each of us may personally know of, meat consumption in India is among the lowest in the world. Several studies have shown meat consumption in India being traditionally low but despite our historical & cultural preferences, there is a distinct change in tide with rise in per capita consumption. Rise in demand can be largely attributed to changing lifestyles, better product availability and affordability.

Despite the low(er) nationwide demand, meat consumption is no longer only for the upper echelons of society. The prices remain high in parts of the country depending on the type of meat. It may be easy to assume that prices are purely driven by demand & supply but as seen even in developed countries, meat production is among the most expensive across all types of food production. There are a few retail players in the Indian market who have successfully tapped the latent demand and created self sustaining brands. We feel there is a lot of room for growth with significant market size for raw, processed and value added meat products.

The crux of many issues in the Indian food chain remains around lacking infrastructure - for production, processing and distribution needs. However, niche players who have been able to develop specific competencies have been successful in mitigating known issues. Over the last few years, monsoons in Tamil Nadu have been intermittent. Bountiful in select areas, the monsoon were meager in most of the state causing drought like situation in many districts. In instances of smaller herd operations, their source of feed is either pasture grazing or rain fed fodder production. With compromised food supply, meat animal (cattle, goat, pig) availability in parts of the state has suffered. Since the last census, in 2007, net availability of meat animals has decreased by close to 36%. In case of meat goats, the herd count impact was more severe with reduction of 225,000, a net reduction of almost 44% !

Interested herd owners may contact the Animal Husbandry Department which is trying to implement several State government schemes such as Accelerated Fodder Development Programme, Drought Mitigation Scheme, Scheme for Poultry Development, and supplying hybrid animal varieties to farmers. At Savera Farms, we will start animal acquisitions from other producers in early 2014. While we continue to rapidly grow our herd, we also recognize that our supply will have intermittent gaps. As our repeat customer base grows and sales channels develop, we see the importance of partnering with other herd owners to service the market demand. Do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to work with Savera Farms as a supply partner for meat goats.

Credits : The Hindu , Collapse of Industrial Civilization

Calling Mango Producers : Remove middlemen, sell to Savera Farms!

The summer of 2014 will herald the first season of Mangoes at Savera Farms. Given this is our first season and our plantation is still largely juvenile, we are not expecting a heavy yield but we are still excited. With close to 9,000 trees between our ultra-high density (UHD) and regular plantations, even the initial lower yields should result in several tonnes of fruit. Apart from readiness tasks around harvesting, a successful operation will require several time bound priorities post fruit picking and during distribution. A few such activities are listed below. For those looking to read up, here are a few public domain publications from Mexican and Filipino Mango producers.

• Initial Fruit Inspections
• Setup of Packaging house
• Fruit washing, sizing and labeling
• Hot-water / post water treatment
• Ripening
• Packing line
• Package design and sourcing
• Storage rooms
• Audit & record keeping

Each of these activities can become an operation in itself depending on processed volumes. Developing competency in these processes becomes critical if the goal is to attain high volumes and high margins. At the end of the day, each producer has to consider investing in these tasks based on their go-to-market channels and expected revenue.

At Savera Farms, premium Mango varieties include Imampasand, Alphonso and Bnaganpalli which are a mix of shy and heavy bearers. We have been fervently working to develop our go-to-market channels and direct (volume) customers. We also look at this as an opportunity to develop relationships with other Mango orchards and producers. If any producers have a mature Mango orchards and are looking for an alternative channel to sell their fruits, please contact us! Our preferred fruit procurement area is around Madurai, Chennai and Trichy but we would be happy to work with producers from other areas as well. Remove multiple layers of brokers, agents and middlemen who want to profit at the expense of the farmer-producer.

 

At Savera Farms, we look for long term purchase contracts and strongly prefer to work with direct producers and orchard owners. There are several opportunities and we are looking to team up with enthusiastic, motivated agri-preneurs who can become reliable suppliers. Contact us!

Disclaimer : Pictures are for reference and from public domain

At ~4% of all entrepreneurs, Indians are at #2!!

It was a little moment of pride when my alma-mater, Duke University, published a profile on the current breed of entrepreneurs. Savvy technocrats in Silicon Valley have long established their mark in the US. That profile is now changing with Indian origin professionals being recognized for innovative offerings in Medical, Logistics, Telecom and Retail industries. As a nation (and being a perennial optimist), I feel we have many attributes in our favor - Education, Youth, Ambition. We now have to take the constraints, which are just as many, into stride and strive to overcome.

This info-graphic limits the scope to US start-ups and we are the largest non-native demographic of entrepreneurs. I can only try to imagine our collective impact and influence in nations like UK, South Africa, Germany, Australia. Based on the survey taken for this poll, it was not as urprising that people became entrepreneurs for building wealth (who doesn't!) but that just as many people found their motivation in not wanting to work for someone and have a strong desire to own a company. It is clear that this polling debunked some of the common myths that many of us unjustly burden ourselves with. Over 36% of the people came from lower middle class so limited start-up budget is not the biggest barrier to entry. Vast majority of the people were married and most of them had at least 1 child, so while family responsibilities are important, that is definitely not the reason to stall your idea.

We all need a way to shake away the self-doubts and find our way to the greater potential that we can be. Carpe diem friends! Toasting to everyone's success..

Current Availability : Sheep Herds (Ramnad & Mercheri)

We currently have part of our Sheep herd for sale. During their stay at Savera Farms, the animals have always been stall fed, vaccinated and treated for preventative ailments as prescribed (PPR, ETV and regular de-worming). We plan to sell them to meat harvesters / brokers or (hopefully) to future breeders.

Details : 
Breed : Ramnad-white, Mecheri etc Current Availability : 20 animals
Minimum sale : 10 animals
Average weight : 22 Kgs
Age range : 12-18 months
Location : At Savera Farms gate, charges extra for on-site delivery.

In our earlier postings, we had expressed a desire to collaborate with other 'techie2aggies' to form a consortium for collective growth and shared risk. We would be eager to work with future agri-preneurs who are looking to dip their feet into sheep-goat rearing. Our animals can be an ideal starter / breeding herd for those looking to procure from a known source. Buyers are invited to visit, understand our standard of care and review medical history. Our commitment will remain to the buyer around no-charge advice on infrastructure setup, virtual veterinary support and rearing practices - learn from our mis-steps and learned practices.

The current availability includes 19 females and 1 male. The male is young 18 months old, virile specimen and larger than all females. Recommendations resulting in a successful sale (including processors or retailers) will be extended a minor referral fee in appreciation. Please reach out to us directly over email for competitive rates or additional questions.

Mango Seminar at CISH

I am planning to attend a seminar on Mango cultivation practices with a focus on improved harvesting, handling, storage and processing techniques for fruit preservation and fruit waste utilization. The seminar will be on June 10th and 11th 2013 at Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture at Lucknow. If anybody is interested to attend, kindly inform me by Tuesday, 28th May. The charges for the seminar is approx Rs 5000 (lodging not included).

I think this is a great opportunity for those already cultivating or planning to get into Mango cultivation and learn a few tricks of the trade from the experts out there.

Feel free to mail me at info@saverafarms.com if you have any queries.

Melia Dubia Consortium - Invitation to Participate

In the last few years, there has been a lot of interest exhibited in the cultivation of Melia Dubia as a biomass / timber crop. The interest has been primarily generated in the southern Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu due to favorable climatic conditions. As always, we are glad to respond to scores of inquires regarding cultivation and commercial prospects of Melia Dubia as an investment venture.

While there are small pockets of cultivation spread across the region, there is no organized effort in promoting the product to the best of our knowledge. We feel it would be helpful for like-minded agri-prenuers to form a group to periodically meet, brainstorm ideas about cultivation, marketing and creating awareness about this crop in the timber industry.

While the earlier cultivators of Melia Dubia broke ground about 3-5 years ago, I think this is the right time to collectively organize thoughts and efforts. Immediate and longer term benefits would be :

• To spread awareness among agri-prenuers of the potential of this timber.
• To educate cultivators of cultivation practices.
• To develop marketing approaches and connect producers with consumers.
• To bypass brokers and engage end-customers as a consortium with supply-side leverage.
• To investigate additional revenue streams for Melia Dubia consumption.

As part of initial pulse-check, I would be interested to see how many folks are interested and have the ability to actively participate. Please take the poll on the right panel to express your current interest. I anticipate initial discussions to be conference calls and later move into physical meetings. Don't forget to drop us a note (info@saverafarms.com) with your contact details so we may reach out to you.

For your reading pleasure, feel free to peruse through these online resources on Melia Dubia :

• http://www.clenergen.com/biomass/melia-dubia
• http://www.hunsply.com/meliadubia.html
• http://www.benwood.eu/cms/dmdocuments/JagdishChander_Meliadubiapotentialspecies.pdf

April 28 Update : The polling tool mentioned above was standard issue from Google (Blogger) but did not work as expected and was removed. However, we have heard from a few participants already, please continue to reach out to us via email and we'll be sure to include you when the initial consortium discussions are organized.

Savera Farms featured on Melia Dubia

Many of our readers subscribe to AgricultureInformation.com, which hosts a popular forum on Indian agriculture industry. The site also publishes a monthly journal which highlights current topics, concerns and provides insights from industry practitioners. Savera Farm was featured during their coverage of Melia Dubia. Hopefully, some of you got to read it and found it helpful. It was a blast responding to the interview. Till date, we have not had a chance to meet a lot of other progressive agri practitioners. If a meeting is organized in Chennai or Madurai, we look forward to meeting our peers and exchanging notes.

Click to open PDF

Click to access magazine (Browse over to Page 22)

Above, I have also included a link to access the magazine. Savera Farms was featured in the January 2013 issue. Additional posts on earlier media coverage can be accessed under the label 'In the News'.

Farmer Profile : Nalla Keerai (Good Greens!)

It's been a while since our last farmer profile. We highlight enterprising and entrepreneurial initiatives related to agri production or distribution under this section. Those of you who are recent joiners at Techie2Aggie might want to check out the labels on right for previous farmer profile postings. These profiles are always inspiring and at Savera Farms they definitely spur us into action.

Nalla Keerai (Good Greens) is a great example of a group of young agri-prenuers trying to bridge the debilitating  gap between farm and fork in India, all of this while propagating healthy eating! Currently, they are operating in and around Chennai but have plans to start operations near Madurai area in a couple of months. One of our blog followers is currently cultivating various greens in Arupkottai (near Madurai) and plans to collaborate with Nalla Keerai, making it a win - win collaboration from producer - consumer perspective. Great way stay local and support local.

Feel free to post comments if you'd like to get more details on the Arupkottai operations. Read more on Nalla Keerai's story here.. 

In the News : Savera Farm

Last year Savera Farms was featured on a popular Indian agriculture related forum. Please find their feature article on us via this link.

http://www.agricultureinformation.com/mag/2012/01/savera-farms

It was just now we realized it has been a year since this article was published but we did not get a chance to share it. Since this article was published we have completed Phase 1 work of about 50 acres and today we are on trajectory to wrap up Phase 2 development of approx 40 acres by summer 2013.

Hopefully some of you will find the article interesting and feel free to share your feedback and agri related experiences with this community.. It would be great to hear publicly from our readers who have recently started their own agri-operations.

Cheers!

Communicating over Meebo messenger

It is great to see many of you are using the messenger to ask a quick question, get some advice on cultivation practices or just get some ideas from me to on how to utilize your fallow lands etc (Wow, I feel like a consultant already, however my feedback and advice shall always remain free!)

Unfortunately, I cannot attend to your queries sometimes and messages go unanswered. Feel free to mail me at saverafarms@gmail.com. I am usually pretty good about replying and you can expect to hear from me within 2-3 days.

Secondly, lots of agri related exhibitions/events scheduled this summer, do look up the events page for details.

Happy to note that people are interacting well on the site, so keep the questions, comments and observations flowing and delighted to note that we have crossed 50,000 views.

Email Notifications for Subscribers

Periodically, Google will send me statistics around the readership of this blog. Recently I noticed that among the 220 or so subscribed readers, a large number do not receive email notifications when a blog is posted since their emails have not been verified after they signed up. Readers who had signed up in the past but not receiving email notifications, need to verify / confirm their emails. The simplest way would be to use the 'subscribe for updates' tool on the right panel. Subsequently, confirm your email using the system generated notification sent to you. Based on site data, I rendered these for fun.

On a closing note, I always look forward to hearing from the community. Readership has been steadily increasing and your feedback, comments keeps me motivated, thank you! Please continue the dialog or provide suggestions to improve this site and your experience with it. Several of you are in touch with me off-line, while a few even visited us at Savera Farms. Life at the farm is demanding but it always feels good to meet other Agri-prenuers or fellow Techie2Aggies! :))