Agro Micro Finance

News - Sunday Observer
Source: Sunday Observer

- by Surekha Galagoda

Motivated by determination and ambition sixty-five-year D.H.S. Chandrasekera loves her animals very much.

Unlike any other sixty-five-year-old she doesn't complain about aches and pains. When we visited her farm at Nalladarankattuwa off Chilaw she was busy feeding the cows and said that she does most of the work with the help of an assistant.

She said that from her young days she used to drink fresh milk and had one cow for home use and then decided to expand it into a self-employment venture. In 2003 I purchased two animals and also met the officials of the Agro Mart Foundation (AMF) where I became a member". In 1994 she was selected for a local training program by AMF while in 1995 she was selected to visit Thailand.

In Thailand I underwent training in all aspects of dairy management and it was a good exposure and experience to learn how things were being done in another country. She was impressed with the hygiene, cleanliness and by-products made out of dung and milk.

She obtained loans of Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 50,000 from Agro Micro Finance and invested in her business.

The training and education she received from the AMF on home gardening, and growing flowers have been put to good use while she has taken great pains to improve her business in rearing cattle and goats. Now she has 10 milch cows as well as six males and four female animals apart from the goats.
She gets 14 litres of milk from each animal daily. Chandrasekera sells 30 litres of milk to Milco at Rs. 25 per litre while the balance 15 litres is sold to others at Rs. 30 per litre.

She now has some of the best breeds of cattle including the Jersey, Freeshian and the Freeshian Sahival. The dung of the cows and goats is used as manure to grow vegetables and for cooking by turning it into bio gas.

Among her future plans is to grow paddy using the organic method, producing byproducts from milk and opening a shop to sell her products.
Her main problem was lack of labour but she got over it by employing a member of the AMF.

She said that even if you are employed after you return from work get together with your children and plant a tree and look after it. When it bears fruits or vegetables it will make you feel happy.

The field visit was organised by Enter-Growth, ILO in collaboration with ProMis, GTZ .

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Age no barrier for entrepreneur ~ 08-07-2007