Jind Archives - Progressive Farmers

Haryana Based Rabbit Farmer Playing the Role of Real Life Magician by Empowering More Than 700 Farmers with the Knowledge of Rabbitary

Rajesh Kumar is a real-life magician farmer from Haryana, for whom pulling bunnies out of the hat is the main source of income for livelihood. Don’t be amazed! Here we are talking about rabbit farming.

Rabbit farming is a field about which either most of the farmers are unaware or uninterested. But, in the present time, rabbit farming is a profitable source of income and in the future also it can fetch good revenue.

In the year of 1977, there was an initiative taken by the central government towards rabbit farming. A project was started by the government to support rabbit farming in India, in which they use to fund farmers, to begin with, 10 units (1 unit include 70 females and 30 males) of rabbits for their farming. But this project was not that successful and was soon closed down. But this was not the doom of rabbit farming. In 2007, many private rabbit farming firms were opened after some time that started following the same guidelines of the project started by the government earlier, and Paradise Rabbit Farm owned by Rajesh Kumar was also one of them.

In 2007, Rajesh Kumar visited CSWRI (Central Sheep and Wool Research Institute) in Avikanagar, Tonk (Rajasthan) where he first got the exposure towards rabbit farming. He was so much fascinated by rabbit farming that he decided to invest in this venture. Now it’s been 11 years since he is successfully pursuing rabbit farming.

And that is not all!

Rajesh Kumar has expanded his rabbit farming contract business all over India (covered almost all the states). Under his contract business, he provides 10 units of rabbits to the farmer and also gives complete training to take care of the rabbits. He also provides transportation for the delivery and collection process of rabbits from the farmer’s farm.

Rajesh- “Rabbit business is mostly adopted by small farmers, so basically rabbit farming is done where there are small farmers. Currently, I am doing contract farming with more than 700 farms, located all over India.”

How Rajesh Kumar made marketing easier for other rabbit farmers….

Rajesh Kumar has done one more advantageous thing for the farmers who started rabbit farming through him and that is marketing. The purchasing price of the rabbits back from the farmers is decided in the beginning and after every year there is 10% increase in the price of the rabbit. Moreover, he has made marketing easier for the farmers, because when the rabbits get mature for selling purpose, then Mr. Kumar send his own vehicle to collect the rabbits from their farms. There is only one condition that every farmer has to follow and that is investing in 10 or more units of rabbits in the beginning to get free transportation of the rabbits. The farmers who invest in fewer rabbits (less than 10 units) they have to use their own transportation for rabbit delivery.

Some basic stats about rabbit farming that Mr. Kumar shared…

• Female gets pregnant maximum 6 to 7 times in a year
• From one pregnancy a doe can give birth to minimum 1 baby and maximum 14
• Pregnancy period of a doe is 30 days
• If the litter size is increased, then chances are there that weak babies will be born. So on an average, we can say that 5 average babies survive per doe.
• In case a doe has given birth to more than 5 babies then the farmer has to shift some of the babies to another doe to provide complete nutrition to the babies.
• A baby rabbit gets ready for selling purpose in 3 months if the proper feed is given.
• Newborn babies open their eyes in 12-14 days
• Weight ranges between 1.45 kg to 2 kg depending on the feed.
• Rabbits are used for meat purpose and for making vaccination for swine fever in piggeries

Rajesh says- “Farmer should try to get their female rabbit 8 times pregnant in a year to earn good profit.”

How Rajesh Kumar prepares feed for rabbits…

In India, there is no specific feed company for rabbits, because rabbits consume less amount of feed. So, Rajesh Kumar prepares rabbit feed at home.

Ingredients of Dry Feed- Maize, Wheat, Soybeans granules, Choker, Rice Bran for fat, Salt, Mineral Mixture.

This feed changes according to the area.

During June, July and August moisture content is very high in the atmosphere, so farmers should make only 100 kg feed according to 10 units of rabbits. Because rabbits fell sick by eating bad feed. Rabbits are just like humans and they should be taken care very carefully. Although there is no specific vaccination for rabbits, if the rabbit has caught some disease then Rajesh Kumar assist the farmers with its medications.

Currently, Rajesh Kumar is living with his mother, father, wife, two sisters, two brothers and his son in his hometown Dhatrath, district Jind (Haryana). His brother Parveen Kumar help him in his rabbit farming venture. His monthly income from rabbit farming is Rs. 30 to 40, 000.

Awards & Achievements:

• 3rd award in best rabbit competition at Pant Nagar
• Certified by Haryana Government
• Registered with CPCSEA (Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals) in 2016

Future plan: He wants to expand and expose his rabbit farming contract business to more farmers in India.

Message

“Rabbit farming is a profitable venture because it needs less investment and more profit. Small-scale farmers who have less land can invest in this venture and gain good profit out of it.”

Details of contract rabbit farming provided by Rajesh Kumar

Rajesh Kumar provides 2 days full training for rabbit farming in batches. Training includes vaccination, medication, checking pregnancy, taking care. If any farmer is interested in doing rabbit farming then minimum 3 lakh rupees is required for the investment in 10 units of rabbit and for shed 1 lakh rupees. In India, most founded breeds of rabbits are Angora (in cold region), Chinchilla, Grey Giant, Newzealand White, and Dutch Half Black-Half White.

Rajesh Kumar also has an office in Kurukshetra from where he manages all the official work of his farm.

Rajesh Kumar as being a B.Sc. Graduate in Multimedia Animation proved that rabbit farming is a field which any person can adopt and continue successfully with little guidance and training. Although he could have chosen the field of Multimedia Animation, but he chose his real interest to pursue in the future.

Encouraging Story of a Farmer Making Money from Organic mushroom Farming and Mushroom Products

The science of agriculture has been refined and perfected overtimes to fulfill the demands of the ever increasing population. And with advancement, farming techniques has also been changed. Nowadays most of the farmers are dependent on conventional farming (industrial farming) techniques, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, GMO and other industrial product to maximize the potential yield of their crops; very few are doing farming without using chemicals. Today, we are going to introduce you to a personality, who also use to do conventional farming earlier, but after getting the insight and knowing the benefits of using natural ways in farming, he started using natural farming methods.

Ashok Vashist is an ordinary farmer of village Haryana, who breached the stereotypical thinking of using conventional farming techniques and started using organic farming methods for mushroom cultivation. He got the inspiration of doing mushroom cultivation by using natural farming method after his visit to Research Center of Mushroom, where Chief Scientist Dr. Ajay Singh Yadav make him aware of the beneficial properties of mushroom and motivated him to start doing it.

In the beginning, when he started mushroom farming, the person other than Scientist Ajay Singh Yadav, who always encouraged and assisted him in farming was his wife. All the other six members of his family also helped and supported him a lot.

Ashok Vashist mainly follows three important steps of mushroom cultivation.

First Step: In the first step, he prepares compost by using paddy straw, wheat straw, millet straw, etc. He cut the straws in 3 to 4 cm and soak them in water.

Second Step: In the second step, he leaves the straw for 28 days in the compost made at home.

Third Step: In the third step, when the compost is prepared, he sows the mushroom seeds which are specially prepared in the lab.

He always follows these three steps while doing mushroom farming and other than mushroom he also cultivates wheat and rice in his farm. By qualification, he is just 10th passed, but this thing never dispirited him in learning and exploring new things. With his innovative thinking and enthusiasm, he tries to create different product out of mushroom, and till now he has created products like honey muraba, mushroom achaar, mushroom muraba, mushroom bhujia, mushroom biscuits, and even mushroom jalebi and ladoo also. One thing that he especially cares about while making different food products is health. So, he uses Stevia powder made from the plant species stevia to sweeten the sweet recipes. Stevia is an ideal healthy sweetener and is also nutritious; diabetic patients can consume sweet products containing stevia without any worries.

Ashok Vashist journey started from a very small platform, almost from zero, and today he has setup up his own business from his hard work, where he sold his homemade products which have been passed by FSSAI. Maharishi Vashist Mushroom is the brand name under which he is selling his products, and many experts, officers, leaders, and media house visit his farm, time to time, to know his innovative way and the idea behind mushroom cultivation and creating delicious mushroom products.

Ashok Vashist wall of achievement includes:

• Certificate for mushroom production technology training programme from HAIC Agro Research and Development Centre.

• Training Certificate by Chaudhry Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar.

• Award and Certificate of Achievement in 2nd Agri Leadership Summit 2017

• Appreciation award from DC Amna Tarneem Jind.

Mushroom Seed:
Ashok Kumar is the first farmer of India who recently developed the seed of mushroom, which can be used as spawn.

Well these are just few awards and achievements to mention about Ashok Vashist, even his buffalo also won the competition by giving 23 kg of milk, which gave him a cash prize of Rs 21 thousand. He only owns 4.5 acres of land and 6 Murrah Buffaloes from which he tries to make out the best earning and profit. He is also an active participant of various exhibitions and events which help him in showcasing his products and making awareness of his farming techniques. And with the hard work and passion with which he is working, in future he will definitely going to achieve much more successes and praises in the field of farming.

Ashok Vashist has a special message for the farmers
“Mushrooms are highly nutritious and beneficial to human health. I have generated great profit from mushroom cultivation by growing them in a natural way. As, we know that, food processing is going to be a big thing in the future, so try to take advantage of the opportunity. In the coming time I’m planning to expand my mushroom cultivation to produce products in huge quantity for selling purpose. My message to other farmers is that they should also take up mushroom farming and process them to make different products for selling in the market. Even landless farmers can also make great earning from mushroom farming and they should also choose this field for farming.”