Ghomtiben Patel, a woman dairy farmer in Gujarat’s Kheda district, put her 4-year-old buffalo on sale for ₹1.10 lakh on the Pashudhan platform — recently introduced by Amul for cattle trade.

Ghomtiben uploaded three photographs of the animal on the android mobile app along with details such as location, a day’s milk yield (14 litres) and breed. Over 160 farmers saw the post, while four of them showed interest in buying it.

‘Pashudhan’ is part of the Amul Milk Producers’ App — a free app for dairy producers of Amul. The platform allows farmers to place a “sell offer” along with details like location, price, productivity, breed, age, photo/video etc. The app, launched around two months ago, is fast gaining traction. Over 900-odd posts for selling cattle worth about ₹5 crore have already been placed. These posts include 256 female buffalo of Banni, Jaffrabadi, Mehsana, Murrah, Surti and other breeds. About 330 cow breeds such as Holstein Friesians, Gir, Sahiwal, Kankrej and Dangi have been put up for sale too. There are also two dozen bulls and male buffalo placed on sale. The price sought for the cattle ranges from ₹32,000 to as high as ₹2,00,000 per animal.

Transparent trade

“As and when the farmers get to know about it, they start using this platform. It is a wonderful tool for transparent cattle trade, which was earlier completely dependent on references and commission agents. This directly connects the buyer and seller, thereby providing transparency and savings on commission,” said Shamalbhai Patel, Chairman of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which owns the Amul brand.

“Farmers are increasingly getting digital. And this tool meets their requirements. It will be very popular,” said Patel, who also heads Sabarkantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union - Sabar Dairy in North Gujarat.

24X7 marketplace

Giving details about the app, Jayen Mehta, Chief Operating Officer, Amul said, “This has become a 24x7 marketplace for cattle. Farmers can negotiate for price and filter the search criteria based on their preferred distance, breed, type of cattle, productivity, price range, location etc.” For the dairy major, the app provides massive real-time data on cattle, enabling it to do trend analysis and keep an eye on the developments on the ground.

As per the Amul database, there are 36 lakh milk producers registered with various milk cooperative societies in villages in Gujarat. They own around 25 lakh indigenous cows, over 35 lakh hybrid cows and more than 70 lakh buffaloes.

Dairy experts believe that going forward this platform can create an alternate business for those interested in only rearing and selling the animals and not dairying.

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