What are subsidiary enterprises and why do farmers need them?
A subsidiary enterprise is an extra business run on or near the farm, next to growing crops. It is also called an allied activity.
Why they matter
- Regular income: crops pay only at harvest; milk and eggs pay every day.
- Less risk: if rain fails or pests hit the crop, the family still earns.
- Use of waste: straw, husk and stalks feed animals or grow mushrooms.
- Manure and fuel: dung and droppings go back to fields or into a biogas plant.
- Jobs: women, young people and elders can work at home all year.
- Better nutrition: milk, eggs, honey, fish and mushrooms are rich in protein and vitamins.
Dairy farming
Dairy means keeping cows, buffaloes or goats for milk.
- Breeds: high-yielding cows (Sahiwal, Gir, Red Sindhi in India; Holstein Friesian, Jersey worldwide) and buffaloes (Murrah).
- Care: a clean, airy shed; green fodder, dry fodder and concentrate; clean water (a cow drinks 40–80 L a day); vaccination and clean milking.
- Products: milk, curd, butter, ghee, paneer, cheese.
- By-products: dung for compost and biogas.
- Marketing: village collection centres and cooperatives give a fair price.
Poultry farming
Poultry farming raises chickens, ducks, turkeys or quails for eggs and meat.
- Layers: hens kept for eggs; a good layer gives about 250–300 eggs a year.
- Broilers: fast-growing chickens ready for meat in about 5–7 weeks.
- Housing: deep-litter system (birds on husk or sawdust) or cages; good air and light.
- Health: vaccines (for example against Ranikhet/Newcastle disease), clean water, and keeping out wild birds.
- By-product: droppings are a rich manure.
Beekeeping (apiculture)
Beekeeping keeps honeybee colonies in wooden boxes (hives).
- Colony: one queen (lays eggs), thousands of workers (collect nectar, make honey), and a few drones (males).
- Species: Apis mellifera (European bee, high yield), Apis cerana indica (Indian bee, gentle), rock bee and little bee in the wild.
- Products: honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, propolis.
- Big bonus: bees pollinate crops such as mustard, sunflower, apple and almonds, raising their yield.
- Needs little land and money; place hives near flowering crops and never spray pesticides on flowers.
Mushroom cultivation and other allied enterprises
Mushrooms are fungi, so they need no sunlight. Common kinds: button, oyster and paddy-straw mushrooms.
- Chop straw, soak it and pasteurise it (hot water) to kill other microbes.
- Mix in spawn (mushroom 'seed') and fill in bags.
- Keep in a dark, damp room (about 20–28 °C, high humidity).
- Harvest in about 3–6 weeks; the used straw becomes compost.
Other enterprises
- Fish farming (pisciculture): carp in ponds; can be combined with rice, ducks or poultry.
- Goat and sheep rearing: meat, milk, wool; small animals that eat shrubs.
- Sericulture: silkworms fed on mulberry leaves make silk.
- Others: piggery, vermicompost units, nurseries, biogas.
Integrated farming system
In an integrated farming system the parts help each other: crop straw → cattle and mushrooms; dung → biogas → slurry to fields; poultry droppings → fish pond; pond mud → fields.
Try it: design your own integrated farm
Draw your crop field in the middle. Add any three enterprises around it. For each, draw an arrow showing what it takes from the farm (feed, straw) and what it gives back (manure, pollination, slurry). Then use the 3D free play to see how many months have income.
Key formulas and definitions
- Subsidiary enterprise = extra farm business beside crops (also called allied activity)
- Dairy: milk daily; dung → compost or biogas
- Poultry: layers → eggs (≈ 250–300/year); broilers → meat in ≈ 5–7 weeks
- Apiculture: honey + wax + pollination of crops
- Mushroom: fungi on pasteurised straw + spawn, dark and humid, harvest in ≈ 3–6 weeks
- Profit = income − costs; integrated farming reuses one unit's waste as another's input
Worked examples
1. A family has 3 cows each giving 10 L of milk a day, sold at ₹45/L. Feed and care cost ₹600 a day. Find the monthly profit (30 days).
Milk per day = 3 × 10 = 30 L. Income per day = 30 × 45 = ₹1,350. Profit per day = 1,350 − 600 = ₹750. Monthly profit = 750 × 30 = ₹22,500.
2. 100 layer hens lay eggs on 80% of days. How many eggs in 30 days? At ₹6 per egg, what is the income?
Eggs per day = 100 × 0.8 = 80. In 30 days = 2,400 eggs. Income = 2,400 × 6 = ₹14,400.
3. Why would a mustard farmer welcome a beekeeper's hives on the field edge?
Bees pollinate mustard flowers, so more seeds set and yield rises, while the beekeeper gets mustard honey. Both gain; the farmer must avoid spraying insecticide during flowering.
Common mistakes
- Thinking subsidiary enterprises replace crops. They run alongside crops and support them.
- Mixing up layers and broilers: layers are for eggs, broilers for meat.
- Thinking mushrooms are plants that need sunlight. They are fungi and grow in the dark.
- Spraying insecticides on flowering crops near beehives; it kills the bees that raise the yield.