Drive past the rural landscape in the country, and you’ll often find gobar (cow dung) in heaps or slapped on the walls for drying. This is fuel and fertiliser for the many pastoral communities across India. Now, two young men in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district, about 285 kilometres from state capital Lucknow, have made vermicompost from the dung and turned it into a unique business opportunity.
Vermicompost, produced when vegetable and food waste is decomposed by microorganisms and earthworms, is said to promote soil fertility. It is a vital part of sustainable organic farming experiments.
Also read: Chhattisgarh fuels rural economy using cow dung; also makes vermicompost more accessible
In Seekhad village, Chandramauli Pandey (34) and Mukesh Pandey (36) have been producing nourishing vermicompost from dung that is discarded. “When we visited our village Seekhad, we would find cow dung lying in heaps on the fields. People in villages who don’t have an LPG connection use the dried gobar as fuel. The rest was getting wasted. That’s how we got the idea of using it to make compost,” Mukesh told Gaon Connection.
The local people get paid for bringing the gobar to the friends for processing. Chandramauli said they paid Rs 1,500 for a trolley load of gobar. Thanks to this additional income, people have been collecting the dung at a specified location near their homes. This also helps keep the village clean.
Possible export market
Apart from supplying vermicompost to various districts in Uttar Pradesh, the duo also supplies it to Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand.
They recently also sent a batch to Nepal and the Maldives, and preparations are underway to send the compost to Sri Lanka. A kilogramme (kg) of compost is sold at Rs 10 locally, and the present annual turnover is Rs 28 lakh a year.
