Low Productivity of Indian Dairy animals: Challenges & Mitigation Strategies

Low Productivity of Indian Dairy animals: Challenges & Mitigation Strategies.

Dr. Gunajit Das

(ASM-2509)

Scientist (Vety. Medicine)

AAU- Zonal Livestiock Research Station, Mandira, Kamrup

Introduction: 

Dairy production is one of the major livelihoods support for the rural economy of India. It is a significant source of income for resource-poor small and marginal farmers, in a variety of ways; including nutritional source of protein for the households, sale of milk and milk products, emergency financial needs, fuel for cooking, insurance against draught, manure for agricultural crops etc. Dairy is the single largest agricultural commodity contributing around 5% of the national economy, which engages more than 8 crore farmers directly. India ranks 1^st in the world for milk production, accounting for 24% of the global milk production. Milk production is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.85% over the past 9 years from 146.31 million tonnes during 2014-15 to 230.58 million tonnes during 2022-23. The per capita availability of milk is 459 grams per day in India during 2022-23 against the world average of 322 grams per day in 2022. Compared to the previous year (2021-22), the milk output from native or non-descript cattle has increased by 2.63%, while that from exotic or crossbred cattle has risen by 3.75% on 2022-23. Additionally, milk production by buffaloes has increased by 3.69% on 2022-23 (BAHS, 2023). Out of the country’s total milk production, native buffaloes produce around 31.94%, crossbred cattle contribute 29.81%, indigenous cattle contributing for 10.73%, whereas non-descript cattle and buffaloes account for 9.51%  and 12.87% respectively. The goat milk produced nationwide, accounts for 3.3% and milk produced by exotic cows contributes only 1.86% of the total milk output (Fig.1). The increase in the country’s milk output is mainly due to the increasing bovine population and the recent trend of rearing mostly the female animals by the farmers and dairy entrepreneurs. The Female Cattle (Cows population) is 145.91 million, it increased by 18.6% over the previous census (2012). The indigenous or non-descript female cattle population has increased by 10% whereas crossbred or exotic female population has risen by 41.44% in 2019 as compared to previous census i.e; 2012. The total milch animals (in-milk and dry) in cows and buffaloes is 125.75 million, with an increase of 6.0 % in 2019, over the previous census (20^th Livestock Census, 2019).

Despite being the highest producer of milk in the world, the dairy animals in India remain the potentially low producer of milk individually. The average yield per animal per day for exotic/crossbred is 8.55 Kg/day/animal and for indigenous/non-descript is only 3.44 Kg/day/ animal which is far below the global average of milk yield per dairy cow or she-buffalo. Different sailent factors responsible for low production are discussed below.

Reasons of low productivity of Indian diary cows:

1. Genetic factors: Indian dairy animals both indigenous and non-descript cows often have lower genetic potential for milk production compared to high yielding cross-bred and exotic breeds.
2. Inadequate nutrition: As most of the dairy animals are reared by small and marginal farmers in India, they lack in providing high quality concentrates and green fodder to their animals, leading to lower milk production.
3. Health: Underlying disease conditions in sub-clinical forms hampers production. Most of the diseases in dairy animals remain undiagnosed or untreated in sub-clinical forms suh as sub-clinical mastitis, parasitic infections, mineral deficiencies etc.affects production potential of the animals.
4. Lack of scientific management: most of the dairy animals are reared in unorganized farms and the farmers lack awareness regarding scientific rearing practices.
5. Indiscriminate breeding: since artificial insemination is widely practiced in India under schemes like Rashtriya Gokul Mission, National livestock mission among others, but due to improper knowledge about breeding policy and sometimes due to remote location of the dairy farms, AI workers end up in inseminating wrong semen dose.
6. Economic status of dairy farmers: Most of the dairy farmers have limited financial resources to invest in modern practices and technologies which involves a huge amount of money.
7. Awareness and training: since majority of the dairy farmers reside in rural areas, therefore, actual training and awareness of the dairy farmers are still lacking.
8. Lack of infrastructure: majority of the dairy animals are reared by resource poor farmers, lacking proper animal sheds, housing facilities, modern equipments, infrastructure for milk collection, storage and transportation which leads to loss due to quality deterioration.
9. Climatic and environmental factors: Recent years have witnessed the adverse effects of global warming with extremes of weather with environmental temperature reaching near 50⁰C in many parts of the country and the high humidity have directly affected the health and production of the dairy animals.

Challenges:

Though the government has undertaken many policies for development of the dairy sector, there are many challenges, which leads to lower production by the Indian dairy animals.

1. Lack of resource: majority of the dairy farmers have limited land holdings, limited availability of quality green fodder, lack of raw materials like maize, wheat etc for formulation of concentrate feeds.
2. Limited access to quality healthcare facilities: due to the remote locations of many dairy farms, they don’t have the easy and timely access to healthcare services. Moreover there is lack of sufficient veterinary professionals in the field against a large population of livestock and a single veterinarian has to render service to a huge no of animals. Hence, many quacks are taking upper hand in field condition and treating the livestock injudiciously, leading to deterioration of the health and production performance.
3. Fragmented land holdings: due to exponential increase in human population in India, the cultivable and grazing lands are shrinking day-by-day, leading to raising smaller sizes of dairy farms with small scale production.
4. Poor market access and lack of direct linkages with consumers or processing units by the dairy farmers is another constraint.
5. Policy and regulation : In India, there is a lack of a concrete policy to support the dairy farmers for developing to a modern and scientific farm and also the existing government schemes and policies are not implemented properly at the ground level.
6. Climate changes: global warming and the adverse effects of climate change is posing a greater threat to all the animals including dairy animals both in terms of health and production quality.

Mitigation Strategies: 

To overcome the constraints leading to lower production potential of Indian dairy animals, we need to take some strict actions to mitigate these in future:

3. Genetic improvement: we have to implement or modify the present breeding programs with systematic breeding programs to improve the genetic potential using superior germplasms. More research work should be targeted towards development of disease resistant dairy animals.
4. Adequate nutrition: providing the dairy animals with a quality and balanced ration including all the essential feeds and fodder through out the year. Farmers having less land for fodder cultivation may adopt recent technologies of hydroponics, aeroponics or vertical fodder cultivation. Promoting silage feeding and locally available and non-conventional feed and fodders with high nutritional value may be an alternative to reduce the cost of  concentrate feeding.
5. Healthcare service: strengthening the veterinary service with sufficient human resource for rendering quality healthcare services in each and every corner of the country so that diseases are diagnosed at an early stage and treated promptly and prevent major loss to the farmers. Proper vaccination and routine deworming of all the animals is another way to prevent major diseases.
6. Improved management practices: training of farmers for modern scientific managemental practices, biosecurity, to withstand the adverse effects of extreme climatic conditions, should be rendered time to time. Promotion of good housing and hygienic practices through various social media platforms specially in vernacular languages should done.
7. Financial support with subsidies should be given to the dairy farmers for developing their farms with modern housing facilities, equipments, sanitation etc.
8. Promoting smart dairy farms: use of app based and user friendly technologies for management of the dairy farms for determining the amount of feed required at different stages of lactation, time of AI, expected date of calving, self learning etc should be made available. Use of drones, CCTV, artificial intelligence (AI) based sensors to detect heat or estrus, abnormal behavior may be an early warning signal for any upcoming disease or underlying disease in sub-clinical stage.
9. Climate resilient dairy farming: Extreme climatic conditions affect the appetite of the animals leading to poor health and production. Developing a climate smart or climate adaptive dairy animal and dairy farm is the need of the hour. Strategies for conservation of water, plantation of more trees around the farms for providing shade and fresh air to the animals and human inhabitants may reduce heat stress.
10. Breeding policy: implementing a proper breeding policy and strict regulations made to follow the breeding policy by all the stakeholders.
11. Ensuring proper implementation of existing govt. policies such as Rashtriya gokul mission, National livestock mission, National program for dairy development, National animal disease control program etc so that even the remotely located farmer gets benefited by its mission.
12. Conducting continuous awareness and training of the farmers for updating their knowledge on recent trends in modern scientific dairy farming for augmenting health, production and reproduction of their dairy animals.

Conclusion:

The production potential of Indian dairy animals can be substantially enhanced by addressing these issues with focused initiatives, which will help dairy farmers and the Indian dairy industry as a whole.

Reference:

1. 20^thLivestock census, 2019.
2. Balasubramanian, G. (2024). Growth and Development of Dairy Industry in India. European Economic Letters (EEL), 14(1), 451-462.
3. Basic Animal Husbandry Statistics, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, New Delhi, 2023.
4. Pathak, A., & Rathore, A. (2024).  Dairy and Artificial Intelligence: Enhancing Efficiency and Productivity
5. Mathur, B. N. (2000). Current problems and challenges confronting the dairy industry in India. Asian Australasian Journal Of Animal Sciences, 13, 447-452.

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