Kantibhai and Shantiben family of 8 members in Datiya village of Poshina block in Sabarkantha, lives with 2 grown up children studying in Ahmedabad for higher education and rest 4 are living at village. 

They were interested in goat raring from the beginning. They had local goat breed. Once they met VIKSAT team and requested the team for support. VIKSAT after studying the family provided 10 Sirohi goats (8 female and 2 male) purchased from Rajasthan. Sirohi goat is a dual-purpose compact, medium to large-sized goat breed reared for both meat and milk production. This goat is named after its actual breeding tract, Sirohi district of Rajasthan. They set up the unit at Rs.80,000 investment. Now they have 14 goats. 

In 8 months’, time 10 goats multiplied to 14. Kantibhai said “as my land is less and not able to get enough income to feed the family, I requested VIKSAT for support. Last year I sold 7 goats at Rs.85,000 of that 2-goat sold at Rs.11,000 each and 2 were sold at Rs.13,000 each. I still have 5 male goats of 2-year-old that can be sold at higher price of Rs.15,000 plus per goat”. 

Kantibhai also works as Pasu Mitra who covers 5 villages where he vaccinates livestock and guides local villagers. He also participates in livestock camps and earns around Rs.16,000 per year from 2 vaccination camps in a year. During visits, he charges Rs.15 per goat for consultation. Of this he keeps RS. 4 to self, pays Rs.4 to Sakhi ben who refers the animal and remaining 7 spent on medicines. 

Once he went for a training at Khedut Talim Kendra at Khedbrahma on natural farming and connected with VIKSAT. After that, he took training on livestock management at Kheroj, VIKSAT. 

Kantibhai said, ‘I wish to continue the natural farming with youth as they are more responsive when compared to old farmers’. 

He also leased-in additional land and cultivating vegetable crops in 2.5 acres. He practices vermi compost and stopped using DAP. He purchased a cow for Rs.17, 000 and added 32 goats. Additionally, he has 3 cows, 2 buffalos. He supplies milk to dairy and earns around 10,000 per month.

 Shantiben and Kantibhai looks after farming, cultivated maize for own consumption in monsoon and 1400kg wheat in winter. They cultivated and sold 160kg green gram at Rs.8,800 and also earned Rs.60,000 from cotton seed cultivated. They cultivated crops by way of natural farming and motivated 22 young farmers to take up organic farming. He roped in 25 additional farmers this year for 100% natural farming.  

Kantibhai is more interested in goat raring. Kantibhai says, ‘as I have less land, so I will expand goat raring’. Sirohi breed grows faster by 50% in comparison to local breed. Local goats fetch maximum Rs.7000 per goat and lamb fetches Rs.2000 only. Whereas Sirohi fetches anywhere between 12,000 to 25,000 depending on weight and other factors’. He also took insurance for each goat at Rs.400/goat.