Cow staring dairy farm Karnataka

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.

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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:

    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:

    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:

    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:

    Please see the second last paragraph, Santosh’s number is mentioned.

Comments are closed.