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Milan Sharma

(Dairy Farming)

Nothing is impossible for a woman, if she is passionate… Milan Sharma proved this by her dedication

It is often believed that dairy farming is mostly done by less or uneducated people. But now the educated youths are also joining this business by seeing other people making more money in this work. Nowadays, men as well as women are getting ahead in dairy farming. In this story we are talking about a woman who succeeded in the dairy farming business and is now becoming an inspiration to other women.

Milan Sharma, a resident of Haryana, has studied M.Sc. Biochemistry. While studying, she was married to Chetan Sharma, an Electronic engineer. After getting married she gave birth to two sons and got busy in her family chores. After the sons started going to school, she started learning German language in her leisure time and later got a job as a German teacher in a school. In addition, she worked with the German Cultural Centre as a project manager for many years. This project was designed to teach children in German and then help them to move to Germany for higher studies.

Later on, both our children got good jobs so we both thought about doing something better for the environment and society – Milan Sharma

Milan’s father-in-law had 4 cows in the village and he always did everything himself. Unfortunately he died in 2017, so Milan and her husband started looking after the 4 cows kept by their father and with it they bought 2 more Sahiwal breeds. With the passing time, their dairy business started to grow and Milan had to leave her job. But she didn’t know much about dairy farming, so she got training from the NDRI Karnal, LUVAS and GADVASU to increase her knowledge. Number of cows increased to 30. She then started a farm named as “Revanar” in 6 acres of land. Revnar is the combination of Revati and Narayan – names of her husband’s grandparents. She get this farm registered from FSSAI. At present they have 140 cows of Sahiwal, Tharparkar, Rathi and Gir breed.

I used to be scared getting near to the cows before, but now I spend all my day with the cows. Now the cows live with me as if these are my best friends. – Milan Sharma

With the increase in number of cows, the amount of milk production also increased. Earlier, only relatives and some people in the village purchased milk from them, but later on others also started buying milk from them because of the good quality. At first, they used to put milk in the drums and give it to the customers, but after a while they realized that there should be some change. Now they sell milk to customers by putting milk in glass bottles. Customers return those glass bottles in which milk is sold to them. The next day, milk is then given to the customers in the same glass bottles. They also sell milk and milk products (cheese, yogurt, butter, lassi, desi ghee) online. Milan sells her dairy milk to customers in Delhi, Noida, and Faridabad.

Along with the dairy farm, she cultivates 15 acres of land in Mathura. Here in the crops she grow wheat, paddy and mustard.

She also use cow dung and urine from dairy. They has set up a bio-gas plant, which produces gas from cow dung and urine, which is further used to produce food for cows such as porridge (dalia).

In addition to this, Milan has grown various types of fruit trees, medicinal plants and heritage trees on her farm, such as Neem, Tahli, Kadam, Papaya, Gillow, Amla, Guava, Bel Patra, lemon, tamarind, etc. By adding the leaves of all these trees in the cow’s urine, she produce the Jeev amrit which is used for the crops. In addition, she use buttermilk in the fields as the replacement of pesticides.

Millan’s husband, Chetan, works in solar panels installation in homes and companies. He has also installed 800 kW solar panel on his farm.

Achievements –

Following are the achievements made by Milan’s determination and hard work:

  • Animal Husbandry Department, Haryana has given her the status of Progressive Farmer.
  • 2 cows of Revnar Farm won prizes at the Faridabad Pashu Mela.
  • She has increased the number of cows from 30 to 140 cows in just one year and added more than 200 customers starting from 5 houses only.
Future planning:
Milan wants to give her entire village a chemical free environment. Going forward, she want to prepare her dairy farm as a skill centre and provide training to the veterinarians. She want to start a project with the government to set up a community biogas plant in their village. The project will provide free gas to all the villagers, where they will also know about the proper utilization of cow dung. By doing this, they can use the waste of the bio gas plant as organic manure in the fields and thus can reduce cost on the fertilizers

Message
“Youth should come forward in the field of dairy farming. There are many job opportunities in this area too. We should also encourage our children to get involved in this work from the very beginning.”