Geer Cow

Gir cows & Community Development Program

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Gautam Bhattacharya
to jvr

show details Jun 15 (2 days ago)


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Executive Director
Foundation for Ecological Security
Post Box No. 29 , NDDB Campus
Anand - 388 001, Gujarat, India



Dear Sir,


Namaste. I am writing to you on behalf of KAMADHENU, a registered Public Charity operating from Balangir, Orissa, and ShriVrindavan Dham. They are establishing a community development center in Balangir and would like to ask your advice how to acquire a bull calf and a female calf of excellent pedigree from the Sabarmati Ashram Gaushala, that is connected to the NDDB and your institute.


As you may know, the Balangir-Koraput-Kalahandi region in Orissa has become reduced to an acronym, BKK, similar to the pejorative BIMARU (states), a synonym for poverty and much else signifying despair. This is a region where the Great Indian Plateau subtends the coastal plains. It was formerly forest where hunter-gatherers predominated, and not a region where intensive modes of agriculture can be successful owing to the nature of the soil, the climate [extreme heat] and the vagaries of the monsoons in that particular area.

A mode of production that attempts to maintain the tree cover and yet produce food and an increasing store of value/income potential, especially with regard to mothers and their young children seems very important. Many already have donated land, 3 hectares in one location, 10 in another, to set up an integrated project that employs the age-old Indian system of rearing dairy cows on fodder derived from both agricultural byproducts as well as drought-proof multi-purpose trees like Zizyphus, Jackfruit, Flacourtia, Opuntia, Acacia etc. supplemented by alley cropping with legumes & millets.

These schemes have been well-articulated by 1) ICRISAT: DESERT MARGINS PROGRAM; 2) CAZRI, Jodhpur; 3) IGFRI, Jhansi. Therefore, the biological end has been tested and proved sound, at the farmer level, throughout similar zones in the world. Packages of practices and plant materials are available, as is technical advice & training..

Additionally, the Orissa Government is deploying a number of schemes to further the dairy industry, particularly among women and the economically weak. We are ready to take full advantage of all such government programs, bringing these to our neighboring communities. We feel we could act as facilitators, especially for women, owing to our deep local roots. Here is a sample of a few of those statewide projects:

1. In order to intensify the Cattle and Buffalo Development in the State of Orissa, having the strategy for building rural economy and to reduce the rising trend of unemployment situation in the State, the Govt of India has launched the “National Project on Cattle and Buffalo Breeding Programme” (NPCBB) with 100% grant-in-aid assistance.
To implement the above said project a State Implementing Agency (SIA) namely “Orissa Livestock Resources Development Society” (OLRDS) has been formed as per the instruction of Govt. of India for smooth and speedy execution of Project work.

2. Strengthening of Orissa Biological Products Institute (OBPI).

3. Swarna Jayanti Grama Swarozgar Yoyana (SGSY)

4. PMRY : Under PMRY finance different Animal Husbandry Schemes are operating in the state to establish unemployed youths through gainful activities

5. OMFED: under STEP (Support to training and employment programme) for women with full assistance of Department of Women and Child Development, Government of India. Rural women have been benefited through Women Primary Milk Producers Co-operative Societies and will be instrumental in augmenting milk production in the State.

I detail these bureaucratic issues to convince you that we have thoroughly done our homework and are ready to benefit from all the help the government is wiling to extend to us.

We are determined to focus solely on INDIAN MILCH BREEDS for their proven record in thriving in the heat and under Indian feeding conditions. To this end, we are writing to you to help us negotiate a beginning to our GIR foundation stock. We want to start small since we have the land but little money. Ideally, we would have liked a pair each of GIR, ONGOLE, RED SINDHI, THAPARKAR, the best that may be had, a bull calf along with a female calf, as distantly related as possible, for each breed. A pair of Surati goats would have been a valuable addition.

It is our goal to provide free insemination service to surrounding communities, and they have promised help with fodder. Eventually, the milk will be used to make value-added products like specialty sweets [poro pitha], soaps, cosmetics etc. as part of an extensive village industries program where women & children may improve both nutrition and income at their own choice.

There is a larger horticultural program for nutrition, maternal/child health & blindness prevention, concurrent with the fodder angle and cow manure, soil fertility maintenance, but that is another story.

Our respectful request to you is to help us secure foundation stock, at least one excellent bull GIR calf and female calf from your renowned herd at the Sabarmati Ashram Gaushala AND one more pair from the JUNAGADH UNIVERSITY LIVESTOCK RESEARCH CENTRE on terms as favorable as our non-existent cash resources allow at this time.


You may verify my antecedents from Prof. Kaushik Basu, Padma Bhushan, Chair, Dept. of Economics, Cornell University, kb40@cornell.edu. He, and his wife, Prof. Alaka Basu, ab54@cornell.edu are now in Delhi for their summer vacation. As they are well known and active in the Delhi intellectual/political scene, you should have no difficulty contacting them.

I am a plant cell biologist and graduate of Yale School of Forestry. My entire existence is devoted to cropping systems research for and about India, especially the use of Phoenix sylvestris, the sugar date palm, to relieve some of the agricultural distortions affecting our country at this time. My services are always at your disposal.

Thank you for the wonderful work you are doing in India. May God bless you and yours.

Respectfully,

Gautam Bhattacharya.

Ithaca, New York.