Visit to Amrutha Dairy Farm, a learning experience

I have gone to my friend Santhosh Singh’s farm before, but quite a lot has changed since our visit. First, Santhosh gave it name — Amrutha Dairy Farm. But later decided to not put up signs anywhere. Why? We’ll get to that later.

Amrutha Dairy Farm is located in Haalenahalli, Madhure Hobli, Doddaballapura.

I mean, here’s a map of its location.

Beyond that, all I can say is: good luck finding it on your first try!

Sunrays through clouds-bangalore — The weather seemed nice for this visit

It is a bit of a challenge to find the farm, but if you follow the direction path highlighted on Google Maps, you can get there with relative ease if you use your phone as a GPS device.

Farmhouse Bangalore Karnataka — We parked inside the farm. This is the farmhouse Santhosh and his brothers built.

The dairy farm was set up nearly 4 years ago. The initial plan was to setup a milk processing center, but when Santhosh realized the heavy investment that was required, he realized it would be better just starting off with just producing milk for the time being, and slowly ramp up.

Cows shed dairy farm Bangalore — Santhosh *only* has around 30 cows

Santosh is parallely working on a heifer rearing project (heifer is a young cow before she has had her first calf). This is to contain the operational costs on the business, such as drought in the area for consecutive years. So yeah, like many Indians, even these guys suffer from water and electricity problems. They also have a hydroponics system which can produce very nutritious green fodder (up to 1ton per day) and this was built completely from scratch by them after taking technical help from some guys in Europe and New Zealand.

Growing hydroponics greenhouse — Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. They have such a facility in the farm.

Cow shed dairy farm Bangalore — They feed the cows a hybrid napier grass grown at the farm and maize procured from nearby farms along with prescribed nutrients

Cows feeding dairy farm Bangalore — This might look like a lot of cows but only 6 cows are ready to produce milk

Cow staring dairy farm Karnataka — Hello

Farm land Hallenahalli Karnataka — The farm has some extra land which Santhosh and his brothers are contemplating how to best make use of.

When word spread about Amrutha Dairy Farms, a Netherlands-based group came to India and approached Santhosh to join hands with the farm to set up a milk processing plant to produce products like khova, paneer and cheese.

Hay farm shed cow feed Bangalore — This is the shed where they store grains and hay to feed the cows

Peacock on roof — This wild peacock drops by the farm every now and then let’s everybody know of its majestic presence 🙂

Farm land granite wall poles — The farm property extends further down…

Farm land agriculture Karnataka — … and they grow vegetables here

Peacock on roof rooster farm — They have all sorts of birds here

Guinea fowl farm bird — A Guinea fowl. They even used to have a turkey.

Santhosh and his family aren’t vegetarians but they don’t eat any bird they raise either. The animals are simple residents of the farm and give Santosh and his brothers company.

Labrador dogs farmhouse — This is an older photo. Santhosh still has three dogs to help him manage the farm’s many residents.

Nowadays though, Santhosh and his brothers are busy tending to visitors — some welcome, and some not. Due to the close proximity of farm from Bangalore city, many dairy enthusiasts or curious bypassers used to frequent the farm. Sometimes the number of visitors went up to around 15-20 groups a week. Santhosh and his brothers started losing productive time and this gave them the idea to introduce commercial dairy workshops. This way, they could help people in understanding the challenges of dairy farming and supplement their income by charging participants a nominal fee. This helped in filtering out people who would visit just to see the place like a weekend getaway. Santhosh and his brother are now firm, and turn away all strangers who just enter the farm and ask questions. That’s why they decided not to put up any signs with the name of the farm.

While his brothers manage the farm and handle the milk side of things, Santhosh leads the effort in helping people setup their dairy project by providing consulting. They have trained over 150 individuals from all over the country, about a 100 bank officers and over 1000 college and school Students at the farm. When we were there, it wasn’t uncommon to hear many seniors calling Santhosh and looking to get into farming — dairy or otherwise — as a post-retirement job.

Santosh explaining school children milk production — Here is Santhosh educating school students about dairy farming

Santosh Singh with school children — Santhosh and his brothers have become quite popular in the area and villagers often invite him felicitate special occasions. This was on Independence Day when Santhosh and his friends pooled in money to give books and stationary to children in the village.

Me and my friends are proud to know Santhosh. We don’t know of many of people who gave up their cushy, air-conditioned office jobs to get their hand dirty and face adversities India’s farmers constantly face. Water supply, erratic power supply, poor road connectivity… when you see it first hand, you realize just how hard things can be for farmers in India. Of course, Santhosh and his brothers being well educated, know how to get by and worked on solutions to counter these challenges. It brought a smile to our faces when a neighbouring villager came all the way to Santhosh to get a letter typed because: a) Santhosh knows English b) Santhosh is probably the only man in the village who owns a laptop!

As the sun was setting, my friend and I decided to unpack a tent I had brought. The purpose was to compare my tent to the 2-second tent from Quechua (available at Decathlon). Santhosh had one of the 2-second tents. First, we set up our tent… which was some ‘Made in China’ tent I picked up from Carrefour (supermarket) in Dubai. It was cheap, and thus came with limited instructions. We figured it out, but it took us nearly half-an-hour to set up my tent.

Then my friend opened up the Quechua 2-second tent.

Quechua 2 second tents comparison — My friend Ramesh is posing beside the Quechua 2 second tent. I think the smile on his face will tell you which tent we liked more! It was super convenient!

Anyway, we were planning to spend the evening at Santhosh’s farm. Santhosh and his brothers spend much of the week at the farm, so they try and be as self-sufficient as possible. To that extent, they even made a wood fire oven to bake stuff in 🙂

Making pizza cheese — So we made some pizzas that night

Baking pizza wood fire oven — It was hot!

Home made mushroom pizza — But it came out great!

We didn’t stay too late as Santhosh had another group visiting the farm for a workshop the following day. If anybody is interested in the workshop, you may call Santhosh at +98451 90600. It costs Rs. 2500 per adult, and that includes food. The food will be prepared at the farm as per your requirement (veg or non-veg). No group discounts. For schools and colleges, just call Santhosh and he shall let you know about the price.

P.S: DO NOT show up uninvited or without prior information. And please, only genuinely interested parties need call Santhosh and drop by his farm. Just because a few of his friends drop by and make pizzas doesn’t mean you can show up at the farm and expect a party to be thrown in your favour. We ourselves only visit Santhosh once or twice a year.

20 Comments

Santhosh Singh
05/11/2014

Thanks Mithun!!!

Best,
Santhosh Singh,
http://www.amruthadairyfarms.in
sanjay d. sharma
09/03/2015

dear santoshji aj maine apka website dekha
.mera bhi dream yahi but not decide .at present i m working pvt job at Nagpur.muje cow bahut pasand apne ghar mein 5 years seva ki. Apse details ke liye request ki how much money require and land.
Please help me
thanking u
Add.Sanjay D.Sharma
C/O Mr.Niranjan Narayan Gopale
House no.86,New Shanti Nagar
Dabha,Nagpur (Maharashtra)
Mob:9921607855,9156955570
atmaram gurjar
02/05/2015

me ak aap ki traha dairy kholna chahata hu muje sujav and help chahiy 09166772764
Nikhil Menon
20/05/2015

Santosh’s story moved me deeply. My wife and I have been interested in starting a small farm for ourselves as we believe it will be fulfilling (not to compete with Santosh). I would appreciate getting his email sent to me so I can be in touch with him. My email is nmenon@pwpartners.com

Best regards,
Nikhil

Mithun Divakaran Reply:
May 21st, 2015 at 12:05 AM
Hey Nikhil, you may e-mail Santosh at santhoshdsingh@gmail.com
madan yadav
21/05/2015

santosh ji me bhi dairy farm kholna chahta hu aap mujue fund or shed ki bari me help kro
(m)07740949582

Thanks
shoheb
07/07/2015

Need information abt dairy farming and need to buy cows n Buffalo’s
Pius
17/08/2015

2500/- per visitor, is it a 5 star resort what?, good money making ideas, in the name of knowledge sharing, will you give a receipt for it, or you consider it as a agriculture income & even cheat income tax, educated IT guys.

Mithun Divakaran Reply:
August 18th, 2015 at 3:22 AM
Pius, I think it was Oscar Wilde who had said “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”

Have you had a chance to look at the testimonials posted by folks who actually forked out money to attend the workshop? Your should check out the comments here: http://amruthadairyfarms.in/gallery.html
Debashish Gouda
12/11/2015

sontosh ji mera nam debashish gouda he me odisha se hu. or kendriya vidyalaya digapahandi me class 10th ka student hu. me ap ke iss udyam se kafi pravabit hu or mera v ye kwyis he ki me v apna ek dairy farm kholu. mujhe ap se kuch buniyadi idea chahiye

Santhosh Singh Reply:
November 12th, 2015 at 2:52 PM
Dear Debashish,

Please feel free to write to me @ santhoshdsingh@gmail.com , I will be happy to guide you in whatever way possible,

Best Wishes,
SS
Prahlad
23/12/2015

Good morning Santos G,

I want to open a diary farm in small scale with 10 calves, I have almost 20 katha (1 katha =1901 sqft) own open land connected with main road. Please suggest us will it be benificial for future, how much approximately cost will require.
Dinesh mishra
06/06/2016

Dear sir
Mera naam Dinesh Mishra hay mai m.p se hu .msc biotechnology kiya hu .but mai aaj 1saal se dairy kholna chahta hu but mera father aur mere gao k Kuch log is bat se khus nhi hay bolte hay itna pad likh k dairy khole ga kya khe ge log but mene Kuch sapna dekha hay ki 1bar dairy khul jaye to logo ko bta sku k kaam chota nhi hota logo k najriya chota hota hay . Plz mujko iske liye help kijiye iske bare me sari information chahta hu
raghu rangaswamy
02/08/2016

FOR RENT –DAIRY FARM,BOILER FARM AND LAYER FARM (COWS FOR SALES) (BANGALORE RURAL)
CALL: 9900372432
Email:raghu071727@gmail.com
WANTED FARM LABOURS REQUIRED, GOOD SALARY WITH ACCOMMODATION
Farms for Rent in Hulikunte Village, Doddabelavangala Hobli, Doddaballapur –Tumkur Road
Near DABASPET/ Thyamagondlu/ Muddenahalli Railway Gate,Bangalore Rural
Dairy Farm: Will 15 Jersey/HF Cows (COWS FOR SALES)
Boiler Poultry Farm: with 30,000 Birds Capacity
Layer Poultry Farm: with 25,000 Birds Capacity
Water: Bore Available
Electricity: KEB Connection
Warm Regards,
Raghu Rangaswamy
974 360 5 888
raghu rangaswamy
02/08/2016

FOR SALE COWS Jersey/HF -HULIKUNTE Village, Doddaballapur- Tumkur Rd
CALL: 9900372432
Email:raghu071727@gmail.com
Near Dabaspet/ Thyamagondlu/ Muddenahalli Railway Gate
Young Jersey /HF Cows Giving High Milk Yield
Hulikunte Village, Doddaballapur- Tumkur Road,Doddabelavangala
raghu rangaswamy
02/08/2016

WANTED AGRICULTURE LABOURS (Family Preferred) for Dairy /Agriculture Farm in Bangalore Rural with Good Salary and Accommodation.
CALL: 9900372432
Email:raghu071727@gmail.com
Brokers /Agent/Contractors Welcome
Hulikunte Village, Doddabelavangala Hobli, Doddaballapur –Tumkur Road,Bangalore Rural,Karnataka
sujeet Kumar
18/09/2016

hello , santosh mai aadhunik dairy farming k baare be a se z tak jaanana chaahta hu , guide me
Balbir Singh
05/02/2017

Hi sir G Mera nam balbir Singh Hai Mai UP se BALLIA Ka hu or ye dairy Mera dream work Hai Mai pehla merchant navy me 2nd officer pe kaam krta tha but mere papa ka bad health ke chaltey mujhe sign off kr ke aana pada or mai tab Se Ghar pe he hu or mai ye Apna dream Pura krna chahta hu can u plz help me

Thank you

Best regards
BALBIR SINGH
9695671700
7980677442
rs81513@gmail.com
Ujjwala
27/02/2017

Hello
Wanted to come and visit your farm
Can I have ure contact number
Plz reply

Mithun Divakaran Reply:
February 28th, 2017 at 10:23 AM
Please see the second last paragraph, Santosh’s number is mentioned.