Pig Farming: Karnataka Farmer reduced cost of rearing pigs, used advanced techniques
Number of pigs reached 20 to 200 within three years.
Pig Farming | Somanna Siddappa Bhasagi, a resident of Alamel village in Bijapur, Karnataka, started farming in 2009. Before joining agriculture, he was a scrap dealer. He bought two and a half acres of land. This gave him a yield of 40 to 45 tonnes of sugarcane per acre. In 2010-11, he took 6 acres of land on lease and continued farming the traditional way. Somanna was not satisfied with the market price he was getting. Instead of growing regular crops, he decided to try innovative farming methods.
After gathering information, he thought of doing pig farming. He took training from Piggy Breeding Center located in Hesaraghatta, Bangalore. After training, in 2014, he bought 20 piglets from Pigry Breeding Center and started pig farming in his village.
Special attention to cleanliness
He built a shed of size 60″x100″ for the piglets. To deal with the power problem, a generator was installed. Somanna pays special attention to cleanliness to avoid diseases. The shed is cleaned twice a day.
Pig farming also reduces the cost of farming
He has also reduced his farming expenses by rearing pigs. The remains of the pigs are collected in a tank of 8 to 10 liters. It is used as a fertilizer. This has reduced their use of chemical fertilizers by 50 to 60 percent.
Animal feed is prepared by itself
To reduce the animal feed cost, he prepares the feed for the pigs at home. Animal feed is prepared by proportionally mixing readily available grains like maize, rice, wheat, groundnut, mineral mixture, and salt. In addition, semi-solid waste is made available from nearby restaurants.
Number of pigs reached 20 to 200
Somanna sells a pig for around Rs 3,500. Within three years of starting, the number of his pigs reached 200 to 200. Apart from piggery, Somanna bought around 4.5 acres of land in 2015 and started practicing mixed cropping and intercropping farming. He also started cultivating pumpkin in between the two crops. This earned him Rs 2 lakh in a single season.
Cultivation of many crops
Somanna also cultivates commercial crops like sugarcane and cotton. He has also cultivated horticulture crops like mango, guava and lemon to make it a source of income throughout the year. He has also planted coconut trees around the farm. It gives an average of 80 to 100 fruits per tree.
Awarded Progressive Farmer Award
He gets a direct profit of Rs 4.5 to 5 lakhs from farming, which also includes pig farming. Today he has become an inspiration for other fellow farmers of his area. He has also received the Progressive Farmer Award from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad.
Somanna encourages the youth to take up agriculture and allied activities like poultry, piggery, goat and sheep rearing, bee keeping, horticulture, fisheries and value addition in millets instead of running after government jobs. Somanna believes that farming is closer to nature. The happiness and peace that farming brings cannot be compared to any other business in the world.
Also Read: Animal Husbandry: Cheap, Accessible and Nutritious Animal Feed
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