New Delhi: If you tell friends in your circle that you wish to run a donkey farm, it might be a matter of joke for them as the particular species of animals is considered to be good for nothing, and is often quite marginalised in our society.
Further, if you have left your well-paying IT job to pursue the donkey farm business, you are sure to be considered a lunatic.
However, 42-year-old Srinivasa Gowda from Mangaluru has proved that no business idea should be dropped due to the public reaction to them if you are confident enough with it.
Srinivas has opened a donkey farm in the South Kannada district. On June 8, orders worth lakhs of rupees arrived for donkey milk from the open donkey farm.
Srinivas says that when he discussed about opening a donkey farm, many people made fun of him, but now people are understanding its importance.
“This is the second donkey farm in the country. The first farm is in the Ernakulam district of Kerala”, he added.
Srinivas has also explained the reason behind running a donkey farm even after having a good career in the tech industry. Srinivas says that he was moved by the plight of the donkeys, who were often turned down.
The BE graduate Srinivas started an integrated agriculture and animal husbandry, veterinary services, training and fodder development center on 2.3 acres of land in Ira village after leaving his job in a software company in 2020.
Srinivas began his journey with goat farming first. At present, his farm has rabbits and Kadaknath chickens too apart from 20 donkeys. Gowda said that the number of several donkey species is decreasing rapidly.
He further claimed that the donkey milk has medicinal properties and is also used vastly in cosmetics, and this could be the reason behind such high demands of milk at his farm.
Till now, Srinivas have receieved orders worth Rs 17 lakh for the supply of milk across Karnataka.
