Agro Processing –Cum-Animal Feed Unit

Livestock rearing is an integral part of life in Uttarakhand and this also supplements the mountain agriculture and horticulture by enriching the soil of mountain. Nourishment of livestock always remains a challenge due to lack of quality animal feed in mountains and there is a huge dependency on outside world for the supply of raw materials to produce quality animal feed. To address this crisis, there is a need to intervene in agro processing stage and linking it with the livestock rearing by producing quality animal feed from the agro by-products. Himmotthan has taken a step towards addressing this issue and has established an Agro Processing Cum Feed Unit in Chandrapuri cluster of Rudraprayag District. This feed unit was set as an enterprise for Sanjeevani Swayatt Sahkarita, a self-reliant cooperative of this cluster. Machines like Oil expeller, Paddy De husker, Jhangora (Barnyard) De husker were introduced in this Unit. These machines are processing the agro- produce of the villages in the cluster and supplying raw material to the foliage shredder. This shredder processes the byproducts to obtain the different ingredients of the cattle, goat and poultry feed. International Livestock Research Institute, Hyderabad is providing technical inputs in the production of these animal feeds.