As planned, DNE started the training of village women in Dairy Healthcare and Productivity Management in Thanjavur. This series of training was held between 25th – 27th June. The trainees were identified from different villages across Thanjavur Taluka. These women were identified according to their leadership qualities, literacy level (minimum 8th or 10th standard), and level of influence on other village women. DNE expects that by training such opinion leaders through this programme DNE will be able to achieve its goal of making dairying remunerative for the farmers.
Village Animal Health Workers (VAHW) being trained on cattle management
During the 3 days training programme, the women were given all the vital inputs regarding dairy management. Different issues like current dairy scenario, marketing strategies, feeding and housing of cattle, animal body and monitoring & evaluation of cattle were discussed at length.
This time the training gathered learnings from the experiences of the previous year. The duration of the training period was shortened and the focus was more on a fewer identified critical points. More audio visual aids were used to deliver the training in effective way. The training programme was designed to be an interactive one. Though it started in a low note, very soon it was found that the women got involved and started interacting actively with the trainer and fellow trainees. Many interesting questions were raised during the training programme, which were aptly answered by trainer and sometimes by the fellow trainees themselves. The trainees showed great enthusiasm and after the second day training, one of the trainees calculated the Return on Expenditure for her dairy business as demonstrated during the training programme on her own. Interestingly, she included her own labor costs in that calculation!
Below is her calculation of income from a cow:
Calculation of Return on Expenditure by one of the trainees
Translation:
1 day = 14 L
30 days = 420 L * 14 Rs
Feed = 1 day 120
30 days = 120 * 30 = 3600
Labour 1 person 40 * 30 = 1200
420 * 14
Income =5880
Expenditure=4800
Profit =1080
Even though these women were from different areas and hailing from different socio-economic strata, this training provided a platform for these women to interact with each other and share their experiences among themselves which paved way to strong bonding. One of the trainees, who have been cultivating Azolla brought some samples and shared with others so that they can also start cultivating and feed their animals. We learnt that she had started selling the azolla to other women at Rs.10 already and had started earning not only by saving costs on feed but also by selling azolla. One trainee runs milk collection centre in her village and is already and entrepreneur. She shared her insights in the marketing of milk with the rest of the trainees.
Dr Rajeshwaran, the trainer says “Responses of these women were very enthusiastic and they were keen to learn alternate sources of income generation. Such kind of training helps in creating a paradigm shift in there thinking. We encouraged them to have income in relevance of their expenditures. Thus such trainings will build a spirit of entrepreneurship in rural women.”
DNE will have such training sessions every month and motivate the rural women to start their own business by providing them all the necessary knowledge about cattle management. DNE will also support them by providing the inputs that they require to sell. These women will in turn go to their villages and share information with other rural women about cattle management and provide them necessary aid for cattle. These trained women will advice others on how to manage their cattle so that they can get maximum profit from available resources.
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Madhur Khunger and Dr.Gangadharan of Dairy Network Enterprise contributed to this post.
Having started its operations in Thanjavur by offering dairy healthcare backed cattle insurance in partnership with Pudhuaaru KGFS (PKGFS), Dairy Network Enterprise (DNE) incubated by IFMR Ventures, has rolled out the product to cover all the Pudhuaaru KGFS branches, since February. As the delivery of cattle insurance and preventive healthcare got stabilized, DNE has slowly started to look into other aspects of dairying with the mantra of “Making dairying remunerative”.
DNE has worked towards identifying ways in which it can provide support to the dairy farmers in Pudhuaaru KGFS areas to help them in addressing the issues they face in dairy farming. Beginning with measures like cattle insurance and disease prevention through prophylactic vaccination, DNE also moved into consultation in feeding and breeding management. All advice is given only as per the issues perceived by the dairy farmers and hence the farmers adopted anything that DNE offered them with an open mind. DNE has also helped in establishing market linkage for milk sales by working with organized milk buyers to set up collection centres in the Pudhuaaru KGFS areas.
Though it is too early to expect large-scale impact, early reports from Pudhuaaru KGFS areas in Thanjavur on the dairy front is highly encouraging. Few customer stories:
1) Vedhanayaki Karananidhi, a KGFS customer from Paruthiappar Kovil near Thanjavur has dramatically reduced her feeding cost by heeding the advice given by DNE. Previously her cost of production of milk was around Rs.6.50 per litre. DNE guided her in getting seed plant for Azolla (a fern), a protein and micro-nutrients rich fodder and supported her to cultivate the same in her farm. She has now replaced almost 50% of her costly concentrate feed with Azolla. With this, her cost of production of milk now is around Rs.4.20 per litre and she is happier than ever before. She has become an evangelist and is promoting the adoption of such practices to her neighbors.
Many more such enthusiastic people are being identified and DNE hopes that after a 3 day training for them, there will be many more such evangelists on the field. Such women (called Village Animal Healthcare Workers [VAHW]) are also expected to act as local contact persons for the veterinarians and retailers for dairy inputs. Beginning June 2010, every month, DNE wishes to train a new batch of such potential evangelists-cum-VAHWs.
2) Aiyyakannu Chinathambi, an agricultural laborer from Cholapuram grapples with joblessness for 3 months in a year making it difficult for him to sustain his family of five. He has had a very bad experience in the past when dealing with local moneylenders. But he says that the situation has changed, with support from Pudhuaaru KGFS he bought a cow and with advice from DNE he now owns a cow that is earning him handsome returns. He has his cow insured, as it is his family’s prized asset.
3) Jayarajavalli Thiruganasambamthan used to sell milk at a local teashop at Rs.10/ litre. As she received such a low price for milk, she kept only one cow to meet her domestic needs. However, after organized milk buyers set up collection centres in her area, she now sells milk at Rs.13.5-Rs.14/litre. She has insured her cow and is now looking forward to buy another cow because milk business has now become a remunerative venture in her area.
Examples of success are many but the path ahead is still long. Financing for buying cattle, cattle insurance and delivery of prophylactic vaccinations, veterinary aid in feeding and disease management and market linkage for milk sales has already been initiated to varying extents. However while all this is happening, DNE is continuously trying to understand the needs of the dairy farmer to better their livelihoods so that the fruits of financial inclusion reach their doorstep.
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Dr. Gangadharan, DNE Veterinarian contributed to this post.
IFMR Ventures invests in rural supply chain companies to bridge the key financial gaps that ail the sector. Apart from Dairy, it is also involved in sectors like Rural Tourism, Crafts, Agriculture, Water, Vocational Training, and Rural Energy. For more information about it click here.
With various inter-playing factors having a bearing on the entire dairy supply chain, it can be a complex endeavor to make dairying remunerative. Understanding the nuances of the entire supply chain requires a holistic approach towards it and tremendous insights on how things function at the ground level.
It would be an understatement to say that for a dairy farmer a cattle is the lifeline for his/her family; needless to say sudden loss of which can cripple their scheme of things. Making the farmer realize the necessity to adopt a preventive approach towards handling their cattle than a reactive one is thus crucial.
This is where Dairy Network Enterprise (DNE) steps in, and as a DNE accredited veterinarian on the field, we see this approach intrinsic to our day-to-day functioning.
As part of this preventive approach DNE in collaboration with Pudhuaaru KGFS (PKGFS) and HDFC Ergo GIC started providing cattle insurance service.
A typical day of DNE accredited veterinarians (Vet) has a lot of interesting challenges and the Vet works in close coordination with the Wealth Managers (WMs) of PKGFS. The WMs explain the cattle insurance product to the local dairy farmer, making him understand its necessity in safeguarding his/her economic status.
Once the customer consents for insuring the cattle, WMs informs the Vet. On receiving the list of interested customers, the Vet along with the WM goes to the dairy farmer’s house and evaluates the animal for its market value and its eligibility for insurance. He then fixes an RFID tag and registers important data of the animal in the customized software. The registration data is then transferred to the insurance company through KGFS.
The role of a Vet also involves offering health management services for the cattle. The Vet ensures that farmers get necessary support in case of treating animal diseases at reasonable cost and as a prophylactic measure, vaccinates the insured animals against FMD, HS and BQ diseases twice a year. DNE also provides deworming twice a year. Through the network of local veterinarians and para-veterinarians the Vet makes sure that the animals get proper and necessary aid even if the Vet is not able to make it to the farmer’s premise.
Besides, the Vet also provides necessary inputs on feeding and breeding management to increase the productivity of animals. He not only advises the farmers but also guides him where these inputs are available and what would be the probable price of it so that farmers can plan everything ahead. Information about availability of mineral mixtures, fodder crop, seed sources is moreover made available to the farmers, with an aim being to reduce the cost of milk production and increase the quality and quantity of milk yield.
Going forward DNE has planned to identify and train local women as its contact person on the field who would offer cattle management advice and basic first aid that require minimum supervision by the vet. The trained contact person would impart the necessary techniques to the local dairy farmers on cattle feeding and management and would prove to be a valuable source of getting information from the field on a real-time basis for the Vet.
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Dr. Gangadharan S, DNE accredited Veterinarian in Thanjavur contributed to this post.
Last week, the Centre for Insurance and Risk Management, IFMR, convened a roundtable on Livestock risk that was attended by all the major stakeholders to talk about the various issues and challenges faced by them in bringing effective risk management solutions to livestock owners. The participants involved all the major insurance companies, NGO like PRADAN, apex institutions like NABARD and NDDB, co-operatives like Amul and DRDA, MFI like SKS Microfinance and international organizations like World Bank, ILO and ILRI among others.
The event came at the right time when a number of innovations are being tried out especially with regards to cattle insurance. It was a great opportunity for all the stakeholders connected to the livestock supply chain to get a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of each other and also to discuss models and ideas which can help in developing robust delivery channels for delivering risk management tools to livestock owners. The discussions held and questions raised pointed towards the practical issues in delivering such tools. Difficulties in tackling issues of moral hazard and adverse selection were also discussed at length.
Here are the key highlights of the discussions at the roundtable:
- Lack of dependable information on insured livestock
- Highly specialized service providers catering to a limited range of services
- Limited bandwidth of MFIs to offer livestock registration/healthcare services to its clients
- Difficulty in uniquely identifying livestock and complications in the process
- Need to build awareness on terms and conditions of the insurance coverage and benefits of livestock insurance
- Need to evolve models based on community involvement or TPA
We have dwelled upon the above points in detail, which you can read by clicking here.
The round table was encouraging for Dairy Network Enterprise (DNE) for the basic reason that the gaps identified during the discussions were primary areas of focus for DNE. The DNE model aroused great interest amongst the representatives of the insurers and MFIs present at the event. The roundtable helped us to ask questions about process related issues in the presence of all the stakeholders and helped DNE get clarity on the specific areas where DNE could contribute significantly.
According to our understanding, DNE would be a significant contributor if it could promote several local and dependable dairy healthcare enterprises on the ground which could work in partnership with MFIs/NGOs and help them deliver risk mitigation solutions (like healthcare and productivity management) and risk transfer solutions (like insurance) to their clients.
Such enterprises on the ground would be powered by the electronic backend that DNE has invested in. The electronic backend that DNE has developed, not only issues over-the-counter cattle insurance but also stores data on the history of every animal recorded on it. Such information would be of great value for insurance companies and would help them in the process of claim settlements and fixing of premium for insurance.
The insurance company can directly collect information on the insured animal instead of asking the farmer to run from pillar to post to collect vaccination certificates from veterinary doctors. The information stored in the database would also help in correct valuation of the animal and empower the dairy farmers to take better decisions at the time of purchase of cattle. After a period of time, each cattle registered on the electronic backend can be given a certificate containing the details of its productivity and healthcare history which would help farmers in deciding the right price at the time of sale or purchase of cattle.
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Avishek Gupta, of Dairy Network Enterprise, IFMR Ventures, contributed this post.
IFMR’s cattle insurance product gets featured in The Economic Times.
Excerpt:
“The next time, if one visits Thanjavur or Tiruvarur district (home district of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M Karunanidhi), it will be interesting to see milch animals sporting RFID tags in their ears instead of the traditional plastic or metal tags, to show their status as insured cattles.”
Click here for the online article
Click on the image above to read the print article
Related posts: Dairy Network Enterprise
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The importance and well being of cattle in the livelihood of a dairy farmer is singularly a defining parameter upon which the farmer’s survival is dependent. Loss of such cattle due to diseases, non-availability of vaccinations, ignorance as regards preventive healthcare measures etc results in a serious loss – crippling the farmer’s economic situation and exposing him to the jaws of poverty.
To mitigate such risks, Dairy Network Enterprises (DNE) in close coordination with Kshetriya Gramin Financial Services (KGFS) and Centre for Insurance and Risk Management (CIRM) has on Sep 17, 2009 facilitated the launch of a unique cattle insurance product in the Thanjavur region of Pudhuaaru KGFS.
Its uniqueness stems from the innovations that are embedded both from a product and process perspective. Some of it being:
- Usage of RFID tags for unique identification of cattle and for fraud prevention.
- While the existing premiums charged for such a product is around 4-4.5 percent of the value insured, with this product it is around 2.9 percent plus healthcare charges. Such a reduction in premium rates is because the transaction costs are kept in check, and through the integration of different technology platforms, information is passed seamlessly with no paperwork and human intervention end-to-end.
- On the spot cover issued in real time, which means the farmers gets cover on his cattle the very minute he pays the premium. Conventional Cattle Insurance products take 15 days to issue cover.
- Fast-track settlement of claims in 72 hours. While usually for such products the settlement time is around 40 to 60 days making the small and marginal farmers extremely vulnerable during such long duration.
- Each policy cover comes with guaranteed access to basic preventive healthcare measures in the form of deworming and vaccination required for the period of a year.
While KFGS is involved with the financial aspects of the product, DNE deals with the non-financial aspects as in providing the electronic backend (hardware and software) for cattle registration and data recording, providing manpower for the healthcare services delivery and enabling access to preventive healthcare services.
Within a few days of its launch, 9 policies have been issued and the intent is to replicate the product across different KGFS regions in Pudhuaaru KGFS, Shahastradhaara KGFS and Dhanei KGFS. One of the biggest bottlenecks in enabling such replication is difficulty in finding suitable manpower, especially veterinarians.
Independently on its own, the DNE aims to offer the electronic backend (which enables planning and monitoring of healthcare services delivery along with insurance product delivery) to interested NGOs, MFIs, veterinarian-entrepreneurs, small dairy plants seeking to offer healthcare and productivity management services to dairy farmers anywhere in India. The intended revenue model being that the interested party adopts a pay-per-animal model after making a minimum upfront investment. In cases where the interested parties find it difficult to source funds for the upfront investment (approximately Rs.50000), DNE would facilitate access to requisite funds and may itself offer loans which may be repaid under flexible terms.
Important point being that DNEs partnership could be used for purposes beyond electronic support for healthcare service delivery. Partnership with DNE would cover other broader areas like access to technical support and training for delivery of preventive healthcare and productivity management services, access to cheaper vaccination, drugs and other dairy inputs as well as other forms of linkages like linkages with veterinary institutions.
The DNE is also in talks with multiple players to work out a new kind of engagement between milk buyers and farmers with the participation of financiers to create a win-win solution for all the parties concerned.
Truly these are exciting times for DNE lead by Avishek Gupta, as it enters newer frontiers.
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For a nation which is the largest producer and consumer of milk and milk products, milk is both essential and ubiquitous – whether it be for the large number of dairy farmers who practice it as a trade for their livelihood or for the ordinary folk who consume it. Even the gods seem to fancy it thanks to the large number of milk abhishekams which happen across the country.
In such a context it would be an understatement to press upon the vitality of this industry, but at the same time it is obvious that inefficiencies which plague many traditional sectors haven’t spared dairy too.
Dairy Network Enterprises (DNE), part of the Network Enterprises Fund, focuses exclusively on the dairy industry to address some of the inefficiencies by using a mix of technology and local engagement.
One of its first projects is to setup a RFID technology backed system for the KGFS cattle insurance product. This process would involve tagging the animal with an RFID tag and storing data in a database which would have basic information regarding the possible cattle value, owner details, location, age, lactation information etc. This information would then be relayed to the KGFS CMS server through the Animal records software. The KGFS CMS would append the owner details and eventually this information would go to the Insurance server to issue the policy, reversing the flow of information thereafter.
All this would happen in real-time, so that the policy document is given to the cattle owner on the spot. The use of technology would enable settlement of claims at express speed as well.
RFID Tags
The challenge that DNE faces here is in devising a low-cost feasible and functional technology which integrates across the different stages of information flow and enables seamless interaction between multiple hardware and software platforms. A challenge it hopes to pilot test within 2 weeks.
Another project which it is working on is the Milk Productivity Enterprise in a box (MPEIB). This project aims to promote a preventive mode of Dairy Animal Healthcare amongst the dairy farmers rather than the curative mode. The setup would enable doorstep access to the necessary resources needed by the dairy farmers to follow better dairy animal management practices, thereby helping to bring down the transaction costs and improving net returns from the dairy business.
For a start, DNE has tied up with a local entrepreneur, Dr. Selvaganapathy in Thanjavur, to provide veterinary support to the farmers in the form of preventive services like periodic check-ups, vaccinations, etc. At the back-end, DNE has linked the entrepreneur with various input suppliers like drug vendors, field suppliers, Government labs and universities, besides providing training. DNE has also localized the availability of such services and products by training local women from villages to be a point of contact for the dairy farmers for every query of theirs – thus negating the need for them to travel long distances in search of getting them sorted out.
Field Team in Thanjavur with the entrepreneur and trainer
DNE intends to eventually roll out a sort of “Annual Maintenance Contract” product, and templatize the entire delivery model of the MPEIB so that it can be replicated in a new area with a new entrepreneur – paving way for making equity investments in such enterprises.
Avishek Gupta is looking after the DNE operations with support from Shikha Thaman.
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