Theni :

The goat-rearing women of Bodi Hills have floated a producer’s company to facilitate themselves in procuring and selling the goats and cater to other auxiliary works required for their trade. Known as the voicemail goat farmers after the women came into limelight for effectively using voicemails through mobile phone to rear the goats, the women for long have been contemplating about floating a proper registered company. The voicemail scheme was implemented by IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Nigam Limited (IKSL).

The producer’s company, Agharam Goat Farmers Producer Company will be involve in selling the goats raised by the women and procure goats whenever they require. It will also involve in distributing loans to the members of the company to raise goats. The auxiliary works of the company will include procuring fodder for the goats, veterinary medicines for the animals and organising camps occasionally for the benefit of the goat rearing women in the region. The company will collect nominal fees for the services which will be included in the capital fund. The collected funds would be circulated among the women as loans.

The illiterate and semi-illiterate women of this region have become the board of directors with a 11-member board monitoring the company. P Vasiammal from Kodiabommanaickenputhur near Rasingapuram, one of the directors, said the company would help wean out the middlemen in the goat trade. “We can save the money spent as brokerage since the company will undertake the transactions,” she said.

This week, the women have given away Rs 30,000 as loans to 11 goat-rearing women of their company. Each of them contributed Rs 250 as share amount and 1,190 women of Bodi – most of them in goat-rearing – have bought the shares. In such manner, they have raised Rs 2.97 lakh as capital for the company. A board of 11 members selected from these women will manage the company affairs with the help of Vidiyal, a Bodi-based NGO working among the women.

“We did not want to hurry because we are planning to run this company in a successful manner,” said A Periajakkamma, another director of the board.

Initially, the women have decided to function under Agharam Traditional Farmers Producer’s Company – one of the producer companies of farmers based in Madurai – to learn the functioning of the company.

“Most of us are uneducated and we don’t want to hurry things. We are working together to improve the company,” said P Papathi, a goat farmer in Bodi and shareholder of the company.

K Kamaraj of Vidiyal NGO said that the organisation would handhold the women for some days till they learn to function on their own. “The women are working hard and training themselves to take up various roles in the company. They will succeed in their venture,” he said.

Having started the producer’s company, the women are now contemplating on starting a cooperative bank. “We are thinking about a bank exclusively for us and we will work together to achieve it too in future,” Vasiammal says with confidence.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai> Goats / by J. Arockiaraj, TNN / January 31st, 2014