Pilot who runs dist’s biggest dairy farm

Walking the earth once you have tasted the sky is rather insipid. Laju Cherian has found a way out: cut your own path and fly high on its success. That’s why when he is not flying Mukesh Ambani or Rahul Gandhi, this former Air Force pilot is busy pursuing his interest in a dairy farm on the outskirts of the city. In fact, the biggest dairy farm in the district with 130 cows, supplying farm fresh milk to hundreds of homes and a number of hotels. Living two worlds can sometimes be tiresome, Laju agrees. Presently, he has flown down from Mumbai for a week, before flying to the US for a month. But Laju makes sure he is just a call away for his labourers in the farm and flies down when they need him. His interest in cows goes a long way back to his childhood. Laju grew up at his ancestral home in Ernakulam which boasted of a dozen cows, drinking pure cow’s milk and seeing his grandfather taking to agriculture: it was only natural for him to nurture love for farming. But it was only after he took voluntary retirement from the Indian Air Force at 33, a couple of years back, that this man actually thought of rearing cows. He started off with ten, then added another ten, then decided to build a farm which finally took a commercial look some two years back. ``Kerala has real brains, it has everything to grow. But no food security. By the time it will expand with IT parks, people here will have to beg before the neighbouring states. I always wanted to put in my share to develop agriculture here. Opening this farm was taking a step towards my vision. At least, a few will get to drink hygienic milk,’’ Laju says. He flies in the private sector and presently has a contract running with Reliance to fly Mukesh Ambani. Last elections he had flown Rahul and Sonia Gandhi to various constituencies. These are just a few of the big names he had taken on a flight. But listening to Laju speaking about the huge capital investment needed in dairy farming or the shortage of raw materials and labour in this field, you wouldn’t guess he knows better jobs. ``Rearing a calf to cow is an expensive affair which goes up to Rs 60,000. So, I talked with Dairy Development officials and currently, they have come up with a subsidy for heifer rearing scheme,’’ he says. Laju has hundreds of bulky Holstein Friesians, some pure breeds and a dozen calves and heifers in his farm at Mulayara, two kilometres from Vilappilsala. His farm supplies more than 1,000 litres of milk everyday to locals and hotels. It comes in white and green packets carrying the label Papa’s farm fresh milk. The yield is high these days, but it had gone down to 500 litres during last summer. Milking and packing is mechanised to ensure hygiene, Laju says. Now that is something this man seems to be obsessed with: hygiene. The way he narrates the usual processing steps that major milk brands abide by or some banned products had earlier adopted, would bring a stop to your habit of drinking packet milk itself. Laju’s wife, Tara, is a yoga practitioner and their only daughter, 12-year old Sruthi, is a student of St Thomas Higher Secondary school. If not for all, Laju is happy that at least his daughter gets to drink fresh cow’s milk. ``That’s why I have named it Papa’s dairy,’’ he smiles.

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