Anantapur: Techie's love for fowls, farming

Anantapur: Young IT professional Pratap Reddy established his own IT Firm after working for reputed IT companies in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Doing his own IT projects under the brand names of Vedas Labs and L1 Fame Semi-Conductor in the city, Pratap Reddy pursued his childhood quest to get back to his roots and take to agriculture and allied activities.

Spread in a one-and-half acre near Raptadu highway, Reddy established a Country Fowls Rearing Farm with 1,000 birds. Reddy is raising Osle breed variety of chickens which are in great demand. One fat fowl weighing a kilogram or more will fetch Rs 300 to Rs 350. After taking care of all the feed and farm maintenance etc, Rs 80,000 to Rs 1 lakh minimum profit can be earned.

The farm was established in 2004 and ever since had been running successfully with the help of committed caretaker family. To make the project more cost effective, goat and sheep rearing also had been taken up with 30 goat and 10 sheep. In a phased manner, the sheep and goats will be increased to 200, says Reddy. He does not believe in the notion that agriculture and its allied activities are a losing proposition. No culture is a losing proposition when it is done with commitment, he added.

His farm at Gouri Bidanur sells Rs.40 000 to 50 000 worth of country fowls every day. He says people throng to his farm and purchase country fowls. He has no marketing problems. Reddy says that he spends very little on feed as the birds roam in open farm and eat natural food from the soil. Besides he grows Ajola, the chicken, goat and sheep feed is also grown in farm apart from maize and other feed plants. He says trust in his employees whether in the IT company or in the agriculture farms, is the key to success. In fact, Reddy has gained enough expertise to offer tips to farmers.