Creating Jobs…. adding value !
Last week the column had highlighted some of the salient points from the NDDBs annual report for 08-09. There were many more which need to be shared, including the remarkable success achieved by IndiaGen – a company of NDDB’s subsidiary, Indian Immunologicals Ltd – which was established a few years ago to meet the felt need of a professionally managed organization that could provide quality AI services , and also establish Standard Operating procedures, that could then be replicated by similar organizations elsewhere in the country. IndiaGen selects and trains local youth in techniques of protocol driven AI which in turn is subjected to regular oversight. Milk producers can ask for AI services for their cattle through an SMS or mobile call. These fifteen hundred MAITs (mobile artificial insemination technicians) carried out nearly 780,000 inseminations last year with a success rate of 54% which is a pretty good number by itself. In addition to providing the AI service, the MAITs also record the breeding data in a specified format, ear tag the animals and follow up with pregnancy testing. After three failures, the veterinarian is informed for follow-up measures. This also makes it possible to link the cattle owners with an animal insurance cover, thereby ensuring risk mitigation. Many state governments have devised similar schemes for para veterinary workers.(In West Bengal, they are called Prani Bandhus).
Readers may also be interested to learn that NDDB is carrying out the genotyping of the Indian water buffalo (Bubalus Bubalis). The coding of genes in healthy animals of such local breeds as Gir, Kankrej,Rathi,Red Sindhi, and Sahiwal cattle breeds, and Jaffarabadi,Murrah, and Surti buffalo breeds has been done. This will help in understanding the physiological and reproductive functions better, as also help in understanding the feed conversion for it accounts for up to 70% of the cost of milk production. To bring down these costs, NDDB has been disseminating technologiesto popularize ‘ ration balancing’. Under this programme ,local youth are trained by NDDB and given a simple software to operate. At a charge of Rs 10 per animal per month, they give advise to the farmer with regard to the substitution of specific ingredients which lower costs while ensuring adequate nutrition. This is becoming very popular with the scheme now covering over 200 villages in seven states- Andhra, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh ,in the first phase.
Providing balanced nutrition also addresses the issue of methane emission from ruminants- the major environmental challenge faced by the dairying industry all over the world, and the most important non-industrial factor in global warming and green house gas emission. A pilot project has already been initiated in Rae Bareli (UP) to measure methane emission in animals, before and after balanced feeding. Such studies would also be carried out in different agro climatic conditions to quantify the reduction , (and perhaps get some carbon credits!)
The focus on agro climatic regions is important, also from the point of view of fodder species. With the rising cost of concentrate feed ingredients, green fodder is emerging as an economic source of nutrients. Through its fodder demonstration unit at Anand, NDDB is making efforts to popularize the cultivation of new fodder crops for specific agro climes – pearl millet for saline areas, barley dual purpose for Rainfed areas, guinea grass for growing under coconut plantations and hybrid Napier for high fodder yields to meet requirements of dairy farmers in Punjab and Haryana. NDDB s tie -up with ICAR for the supply of fodder seeds for its dairy co-ops has made a significant difference to the economics of cattle rearing. During the year under review, dairy co-operatives produced and supplied over 3460 metric tonnes of fodder seeds of improved genetics of maize, sorghum, cowpea, pearl millet, cluster bean oats, berseem, lucerne and 18 million root slips of improved varieties of perennial grasses such as hybrid napier and guinea grass to member producers.
Finally , we come to the issue of milk production itself. NDDB continued to support dairy co-operatives to implement programmes in quality assurance and dairy plant improvement. Technology plays an important role in maintaining the quality of raw milk at the village level which in turn determines the quality of packaged milk and milk products. More than 1400 bulk milk coolers were installed during the year by co-operatives in villages, taking the cumulative total to over 3800. During the year, operatives covered another 1350 villages under the clean milk production programme , thus bringing the total number to over 44,000 villages across the country. NDDB has provided technical and financial support to co-op dairies in obtaining management certification systems by motivating managements, and on request , assisting the dairies to engage consultants to facilitate documentation, training and certification for ISO 90001, ISO 22000/HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points) and ISO 14001.
How is all this information compiled ? NDDB supports an Internet based dairy information system that compiles information made available by participating co-operatives. This enables compilation of the number of village dairy co-operatives societies and their members, the quantum of milk procured and the volume of milk marketed by dairy co-operatives. This also enables NDDB to keep track of districts that have the potential of dairying but little or no co-operative presence. NDDB has identified nine of these districts in Bihar, Haryana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh to assess milk production, marketable surplus and competition between the formal and informal sectors for milk collection. These are then used to plan and develop milk procurement strategies
It is only because of such comprehensive planning, and fine attention to detail that the columnist is quite certain that NDDB will be able to fulfill its mandate of ensuring that the co-op sector , and milk producer institutions will increase its share in the milk marketing scenario of the country, both in absolute and relative terms.
Here is wishing the NDDB all the best!