Elappully Panchayth by now is a distinguished destination in Kerala’s map, as it has won the Green Kerala social reality show, winning Rs 1 crore as an award, Above all the Animal husbandry being a major reason for the this appreciation bestowed to this Panchayath of Palakkad Dist, This small Panchayth placed its trust and faith on Animal Husbandry sector for its poverty reduction and socio-economic development of rural mass. The faith, fairly justified by the support and technical advice rendered by Dr Sudhodanan .
Animal husbandry practice being the oldest profession of mankind was exposed with full flamboyance and grandiosity thereby declaring a statement that the fabric of relation between human beings and animals has not been clouded by the mist of modern time. He created a culture of self believe among the neglected dairy farmers to achieve the so called impossible….. to produce average 7800 liters of milk per day by utilizing the limited input resource(feed,fodder,etc) to the maximum extent with his meticulous and methodical execution of planning under ksheeragram project of Animal husbandry sector, whereas our average production of per Panchayath float around 1000 to 2500 liters of milk per day.
This at a time when we are worried about our food security and emphasis has been heavily placed on milk, egg and meat to fulfill nutritional need of our expanding population, it’s a glaring fact that our state is deficient by approximately 4 lakh liters of milk per day, our production is hovering between 7- 8 lakhs liters per day whereas our milk consumption is near to 11 lakh liters per day and exceeds up to 12 lakhs during peak seasons , same hold true to egg and meat too. Thanks to our neighborhood states. Under such precarious situation of paucity and scarcity, its heartening to see that local bodies and to some extent the Govt,and public alike are running blindly at non productive sectors based on fag value and hype, thereby severely neglecting the food source, with an assumption that these sector can be taken for granted , it’s a evident that we are pumping crores of rupees to our neighbouring state for milk, egg, and meat requirement,……. food grains too.
The signals which are being emitted from various sources concerning the urgent attention to enhance the present production level and to safeguard our food security base to meet the need of our state. However the fact is pointing to something different and obviously there is a callous slackness, which undeniably paves way to more starvation and nutrient deficient disease syndromes. No way, we can force the public or the dairy farmers to engage in loss making activities or presumed non profitable animal and agro business sector.

The ultimate objective of any business activity is earning some profit to acquire the much needed economic flexibility and improved purchasing power to meet ones day to day need and to have a contended life. In fact our apprehension stems from reality that we lack confidence, whether this sector will be able to meet the aspiration of our present and future potential dairy farmers. To be honest it’s difficult to build a reliable and sustaining enterprise on a foundation based on ambiguity and doubt. But all this doubt and ambiguity has been cleared and a believe has been inculcated by Elappully panchayat with its unique success story which clearly states that Animal husbandry is not only profitable but also a profession which will provide economical freedom, pride and better lifestyle-, a business venture, which we can recommend to our future generations.
But we do need to incorporate some major and radical changes into the present rearing and management practices of high yielding animals. The present traditional farming should pave way to scientific and modern method with appropriate adoption of technology and innovation and it should dispel all unwarranted speculation of the new generation dairy sector entrepreneurs.
Dr Sudhodanan the architect who scripted the growth and prosperity of Elappully Panchayath has engraved its achievement in golden letters that will go down as a blue print for future development of dairy sector, foresee as a reference point for future planning and implementation of various projects on Animal husbandry sector, Elappully Panchayath has shown the path, cleared by diligent effort and foresight by this young Veterinarian named Dr Sudhodanan, now it’s the turn of the local bodies, administrators and policy makers to adopt and standardize the means shown by this Panchayath, to script a chain of success stories.

Congrats Dr Sudhodanan and Elappully Panchayat……

By: Dr Anil kumar : Veterinary Surgeon: V D Chengottukkavu: Kozhikode Dist
Date 25/08/2010