Make them smile with a path through scrubs to milk the goats

Being an area having an intermediate wet climate, it is rich with vegetation which is not yet made use to develop any sustainable and feasible income generating activities. Hence my concept is to make use of the raw materials freely available, such as grass/fodder and tree fodder and available women labour in the families to rear goats and make an additional house hold income for them.
The potential participants will be selected through a participatory need assessment process with the assistance of other village community societies and required basic training will be provided.
The cost of Goat shed and the animal will be borne through a low interest loan and the needs and service provider costs such a animal health drugs and supplementary etc; to be bared by the farmers. The extension services, linkages and communications will be provided by the processing company. In the initial stage 50 farmers will be selected as participants and make them share holders of the company in relevant to their investments. We hope to obtain a long term loan or grant to cover these initial capital investments including the capital expenditure of the processing unit.
Implementing of the project gives 3-4 ltrs of milk through at least two milking goats at any given time per house hold and the income will make it an acceptable and sustainable house hold micro enterprise for these poor families.
At the same time processing around15 kgs of cheese per day will give an approximate income around 150 US $ making it a sustainable and viable industry.
Being the processing company which buys farmers milk through a formal collection network at grass root level, will be processed in to cheese and market it to the customers. Required technology and the assistance will be sought from external experts.
Goat milk base products are very popular among the Asthma patients and all of such products are being imported at the moment. Hence marketing goat base product will not be a difficult task as our asthma patients are more than 3 million according the statistics available with ministry of Health.

Regarding marketing, we will use the existing market network for mozzarella cheese to promote the Goat cheese and further to that we will train a girl with academic background to reach the Medical Pharmacies and the Doctors to make them aware about the availability of Goat cheese which is very popular among asthma patients and recommended by doctors. The present price of imported Goat milk, powder and cheese products are very expensive and not affordable for middle and lower income group families. But the low consumer price of product which will be affordable for the lower income groups will be able to capture a fair amount of the market share while expanding the market through awareness.
Further to that possibility of Just in Time delivery and small consignment to accommodate the limited storage facilities at the retailer’s end will give us an edge over the competitors. In achieving an edge over the competitors who sell imported cheese products we could offer a better margin for the retailer which will be an attractive as it far better than the exsisting margins offered.

Goat cheese production for first time in Srilanka will be a unique achievement along with the farmer clusters being the share holders of the company will be a shop window and a model for replicating it to other areas locally and internationally to eradicate poverty and malnutrition while achieving MDGS

I have 10 years experience in Milk product Manufacturing sector as a quality controller and directly involved with the production process. Further first hand experience of 5 years within this period working with the villagers at grass root level initiating micro /small level dairy enterprises. During this period I had the opportunity to participate in various training & development programmes to improve my abilities & knowledge, including the training I had in Netherlands PTC Dairy school in ONrekk.
I am confident enough in developing the dairy enterprise I started after my return from Netherlands as I proved myself my willingness and the skill by winning the National Competition for best start up Entrepreneur in 2005[first runner up].
Hence I want to make use of my skill along with the resources and expertise available to eradicate poverty through livestock activities in my country, specially the communities living under poverty level.

As the production of goat milk will be carried out at house hold level in 28 villages, it will provide direct employment/selfemploymentself employment for 50 women who is living under poverty level in the initial stages within the first three years and later it will be increased up to 100 within the next two years. In the continuation of the project this process will create more self employment opportunities for villages as service providers such as milk collectors/transporters and extension workers in the field which will be around 2 in the initial stages and will be increase up to 4 within the next two years. In the processing unit there will be 8 direct employment opportunities and around 4 indirect employments in the sales section.
The process will initiate a monthly cash flow around 4500 US$ in to the villages which is a significant amount and due to increased distribution of cash flow, food/health and education consumption will be develop along with more services in other sectors as well. Hence this would definitely affect the socio —economic levels within the family units as well as at the village level. The most significant impact is providing the children nourishment that provide affordable nutritious food products to get rid of their poor health conditions as well as malnutrition.

The introductionof new technology will enhanced the skill of the family labour and it would attract the youth towards livestock industry.