LIVESTOCK, AQUA-CULTURE, FISHERIES, AND OTHER PURSUITS: Farming communities world over have some side interests besides cultivation, to supplement their incomes and/or provide some lucrative activity to fill in their own or their family''s time in between crops.
These could be one or more of these:
1) Horticulture or fruits farms or gardens
2) Livestock (cows, goats, sheep, horses, camels, donkeys, mules etc) for milch cattle, meat, wool, fertilisers, or use as beasts of burden.
3) Fish farming (aquaculture) or fishing in ponds, lakes, canals, rivers or the sea.
4) Apiaries or beehiving for honey.
5) Medicinal herbs - picked from the wild or hillsides, or cultivated.
6) Jaggery (Gur)-making, cooking-oil expelling; or dairy products, etc.
7) Forestry (hunting, lumbering, cutting firewood or timber for furniture etc.
8) Pottery, or other products of clay.
9) Collecting grass for fodder.
10) Hides and skins for shoes and leather products.
11) Spinning and weaving using yarns from cotton, wool or other fibres.
12) Other cottage industries, such as: carpets, rugs, garments, etc.
Here we will discuss only those items where use of modern technology can help boost production and provide economies of scale. This would cover items 1,2,3,7 and 9 mostly.
TISSUE CULTURE: This technology can help achieve mass production of any type of plant, tree, herb, bush or any other description of vegetation. Instead of seeds, a sapling or plasm of the desired variety is used as the mother plant, which sprouts leaves.
These leaves in turn are sub-divided ad infinitum, as they grow. So there is no theoretical limit as to how many times the "off-springs" can be multiplied, though, in practice, there is a possible risk of some mutations creeping in, if the exercise exceeds 60,000 times from a single mother plant.
The process takes place in ''clean'' laboratories under controlled conditions. It will prove ideal for propagation of rare or exotic plants, forestation, horticulture, floriculture (for cut flowers), fruit farms, etc For instance, if it is desired to turn all dry hills green, and all desert, barren or arid areas to be planted with date palms in Pakistan, the results can be achieved in a very short time - something that would be unthinkable using traditional methods
FODDER PRODUCTION: It is possible to produce one metric ton of fresh green grass or fodder every day throughout the year under any climatic conditions, on a plot of land not exceeding 50m2. The process is carried out, inside a specially equipped 40-ft. container, from which a ton of fresh grass, 25cm in height, is harvested every day after the initial 8 days. The quantity can be multiplied by using additional containers.
THE INPUTS ARE (ON A DAILY BASIS PER CONTAINER UNIT):
-- Water 1.5 cubic metre
-- Barley seeds 145 kg
-- Special chemicals for promoting growth as per manufacturer''s recommendations (about 300 grams)
-- Man hours: 2 persons 4 hours a day
-- Power source 100 kV generator
The unit can be installed any where near the consumers - the cattle breeders or dairy farms - under any type of climate - arid, wet, hot, cold or freezing. It may be mentioned that one ton of green fodder is enough to feed 50 cows, 200 sheep, or 60 horses/camels, a day. Incidentally, the cows are of a breed that produces 80 litres of milk daily.
Besides other advantages, it may be mentioned that the high productivity of cattle is maintained throughout the year of their milk giving cycle. Under traditional feeding, milk supply tapers off after the spring season or when green grass is not available.
LIVESTOCK: Pre-programmed and enhanced fast breeding cattle can be reared under scientific conditions for optimum results. The economies achieved have to be seen to believe. Special packages are on offer where an entrepreneur just provides a 30 hectare plot of land, and a bank guarantee against which $3,000,000 can be obtained as a loan and repaid within 3 years.
The guarantor will be handed over: a running cattle breeding farm of over 30,000 live heads worth about $35,000,000, with an annual net income of over $3,000,000. He would have invested no money except the land (which remains his property) and bank guarantee that will not be called upon, or cashed at all.
AQUA CULTURE: Fresh or sea water fish or prawns can be bred using scientific methods with investments that can be fully recovered in 8 to 10 months, and continue earning thereafter.
REQUIREMENTS ARE:
Land: 1 hectare
Water supply: adequate
Staff: 6
-- Investment (for works and breeding stock, machinery etc) $2,000,000
-- Potential annual returns: $3,000,000.
QUAIL BREEDING: It is a very interesting hobby, in which a single person can indulge in his own spare room. With an investment of about euro 100,000, he can recover his initial investment in about six months, and then continue to earn at that rate. Birds can be sold live or frozen for meat in domestic markets or exported.
FINANCE: Technologies that can be employed have one feature in common. They are all capital intensive, and generally, beyond the reach of individual farmers or agriculturists. A collective effort and government patronage is needed to kick- start the process whose benefits will accrue to large sections of society. Therefore, some basic structural changes have to be made to reap the benefits of an agricultural revolution nation-wide.
These include:
1) Land Reforms
2) Co-operatives Or Joint Stock Companies
3) Mechanisation And Automation
4) Alternate Energy Sources, And Water Supply
5) Health & Sanitation - Both Human & Veterinary
6) Proper Housing & Education Facilities
7) Roads & Transport System
8) Air-Conditioned/Refrigerated Warehousing & Vehicles
9) Adequate Financing
10) Marketing Or Distribution Network
11) Technical Training And Qualified Manpower
12) Creation Of A New Mindset Among Farmers And Bureaucracy
13) Research & Development Centres (not necessarily in above order).
LAND REFORMS & COOPERATIVES ETC: The present (absentee) land ownership and land-less peasants, working on ''Batai'' system for the big Zamindars, has to be completely overhauled, before any meaningful change for the better can be institutionalised. It is a difficult task, but a way can be found satisfactory to diverse conflicting interests and incumbent landed aristocracies.
It is suggested that in each locality a corporate entity be established to acquire all agricultural and other uncultivated vacant land from present owners against issue of shares equivalent to the current value of the land. Small parcels of land distributed among various peasants or sub-divided as inheritance, have to be consolidated into a larger whole, and no sub-divisions should take place henceforth.
The farmers actually cultivating the land should also be issued shares whose value should approximate a certain multiple, (say 10 times) of the annual yield that had been obtained from their parcel of land. The formula can vary, according to the productivity of the land in each case, to guarantee a fair share to the cultivators.
The farmers thus become shareholders and wherever possible, paid workers of the new owner/corporate entity in that locality. The payment for such shares issued to peasants can be recovered in instalments, out of their monthly wages or annual earnings at harvest time (the dividends on shares).
The new corporate body (whether a co-operative society, a ''collective'' or an incorporated joint stock company, then performs tasks which will be defined later, but one imperative is no further distribution of land or land-ownership transfer.
The shares issued can change hands, by sale or inheritance in part, as a single share, or block of shares out of any individual''s holdings, but this will not affect the physical possession of the land.
CONCLUSION: Further details on financing and actual functioning of the corporate bodies will be propounded, if the above suggestions are considered worth a try.
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