Today we visited Shakthi Dairy's Pollachi processing plant, where the milk is consolidated from the collection centers and bulk milk coolers to be pasteurized and processed into butter, ghee, yogurt and other products.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the plant was amazing.  The entire facility is kept sterile, which meant hairnets and shoe covers for all of us :)  We got to taste the freshly made butter and the ghee smells wonderful (though it can't be great for your arteries - it's clarified butter, first heated, then the solids removed so you're left with 96% fat content - they put it in everything here).  We also saw the huge silo for dehydrated milk powder, as well as the yogurt cups (called cup curd) being made.

Then we were invited to lunch at one of the dairy franchisee's farm.  He's a very successful farmer, and his farm was gorgeous...  more than a thousand coconut trees, horses, cows, goats, chickens, everything you can imagine.

Walking up to the farm house

Shanthi and our hosts

Lunch

After lunch, we visited another dairy farmer.  We're meeting a wide variety of farmers to get a sense of the issues and challenges each face with respect to production and procurement.  And this farmer was definitely on the more comfortable end of the spectrum.  His cows were very healthy, well fed, and well cared for, and he also grew a variety of agriculture crops (very common for dairy farmers in India), and had a fishing business in Kerala (the next state over from Tamilnadu).