Low Production of Indian Dairy Animals: Challenges and Mitigation

June 18, 2024

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Low Production of Indian Dairy Animals: Challenges and Mitigation

Shivangi Tripathi¹& Aditya Maheshwari²

Scholar, Department of Veterinary Medicine, DUVASU, Mathura
Internship CoVSc. DUVASU, Mathura

Introduction:

Among sectors that played a pivotal role in reshaping this Nation, dairy sector is among them that has phenomenally given contributions in India’s Growth & Development. Today India is the largest global milk producer, with the gross production of 208 million tonnes of milk annually, one among the largest single commodity contributing to 5% of economy. Dairy is witnessing CAGR of 6.4% in recent 5 years that is again praiseworthy. When all enterprises came to a shut in past 1.5 years during COVID-19 lockdown dairy was the one that amidst all challenges grew by itself. Indian dairy envisions growing itself with growth rate 9-11% in fiscal year 2022. Jotting about Indian dairy industry and its achievements there is much to assert but while counting all these sparks the need of hour also calls to have appraisal of this applause. Before arriving on any conclusion regarding the efficiency of Indian Dairy industry lets analyse it from a multi-faceted perspective.

Fundamentals of Assessment:

The 3 most crucial parameters that come under the umbrella of assessment are: –

Compound Annual Growth Rate–

The milk production has a CAGR of 5.8% from the year 2014.A yield of 230.58 MT was obtained in the year of 2022-23. Nevertheless, DHAD envisages an annual growth rate of 8.56% in its National Action Plan of 2021 in order to meet the per capita requirement. Thus, the current CAGR is not at par with the actual goal.

(Source: Basic AH Statics-2023 by DHAD)

Per capita availability-

India, a country with 38% of the vegetarian population strives upon milk as a sole source of protein. To achieve the goal of 0.8gm/kg body weight protein, desired availability is 592 gm/day in year 2023-24(DHAD National Action Plan 2021). However, the value for the year 2022-24 was 459 gm/day although 515 gm/day was required.

Production per cattle-

In contrary of having the largest livestock population, average yield per Indian cattle is quite low. Countries like South Korea, China and US had achieved a relative change in yield of 9847%, 459%, 223% from 1961 to 2022, whereas this data in regard to our country is only 202%.

S.No.	Country	Milk yield(kg/animal/year)
1.	United States	10667.5
2.	Canada	9949.5
3.	South Africa	3763.6
4.	Russia	3081.6
5.	India	1599.4

(Source: – https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/milk-yields-per-animal)

Breeds like Holstein Friesian and Jersey are known to produce up to 6000kg and 4500kg respectively per lactation. Considering the Indian scenario the best milch breed of the nation, Sahiwal produces only around 800kg per lactation. Thus, this creates a need to imports such high yielding exotic breed to cater to the need of continuously expanding population. As every good thing comes with an expense, this also comes with lesser disease resistance, temporal and spatial variations.

Challenges:

1.Real Causes:

Feeding and nutrition: –

Conventional feeding practices didn’t take the nutritional requirements into consideration. Post white revolution the practice of growing fodder crops was started but it is yet to meet the need of the huge livestock population. Shortage of green fodder, concentrate and mineral mixture, high cost and inadequate supply is still an alarming issue especially for small scale farmers.

Gynaecological Issues:–

Poor heat detection– Laymen farmers are not able to detect heat in their farm animals at accurate time due to lack of scientific techniques or skilled labour. This causes missed heat or AI at wrong time, thus leading to no conception and one more month of dry period.
High Rate of AI failure– Unskilled inseminator, poor quality semen, inadequate semen collection and freezing techniques give rise to AI failure and loss of farmers in terms of money and time.
Pathological Conditions– Conditions such as cystic ovaries, repeat breeding, anoestrous, brucellosis, trichomoniasis etc. not only cause the loss of farmers income but also affect the animal’s health and possible future probabilities of conception.

Metabolic Disorders: –

Certain conditions affect the quality of life of animals due to the deprivation of female body of certain minerals as there is sudden lose in milk in high yielders. Animals goes into severe negative balance due to deficiency of minerals such as Calcium, Magnesium, Glucose, NEFA etc. A dozen diseases like Milk fever, Ruminal acidosis, Ketosis, Laminitis, Left displacement of abomasum, Retention of placenta, Mastitis, Metritis, Tympany, Udder oedema, Post Parturient Haemoglobinuria and Downer’s cow syndrome affects production animal’s health and farmers wealth severely. As per the data published by “Indian Journal of veterinary science and biotechnology”- the greatest overall economic loss per animal due to treatment expenses and decreased milk production was attributed to Brucellosis (Rs. 1806.54), with Mastitis (Rs. 1193.60) following closely behind. Other significant contributors included FMD (Rs. 982.66), Uterine infections (Rs. 754.72), Babesiosis (Rs. 739.17), Milk fever & Ketosis (Rs. 597.50 & Rs. 550.67), Infertility (Rs. 542.83), and various other factors.

Low yield of livestock: – Beyond genetic factors, several other reasons contribute to this, including inadequate body condition, insufficient maternal and neonatal care, elevated mortality rates, decreased fertility, delayed oestrus cycles and nutritional deficiencies which predispose animals to various metabolic disorders.

Apparent Causes

Lack of organization: –Out of 60 crore litre/day, 20 crore litre milk is retained by farmers and dhoodhwallas for their own use. This unorganized sector accounts for a whopping 62% which not only leads to the dent in profit margins of the dairy industries but also provides entry to the small farmers into the variable demand and supply gap. Farmers having small and scattered herds find it difficult to get in sync with this gap due to lack of backup and other resources.
Infrastructural constraints: – Unscientific design of animal house poses unnecessary stress to the animal. Overcrowding, backyard keeping of animals, absence of separate storage unit is generally seen in villages. Lack of mechanization of farms calls for additional labour cost and in return wastage of manpower. Importance of proper record keeping milk collection centre, chilling and storage unit is yet to gain ample recognition.
Post-milking losses: – Farmers from rural sectors usually don’t care much about the bacteriological hazards and hygienic practices thus leading to failureof the milk even on basic platform tests as Organoleptic, Clot on boiling test, Alcohol test, sediment tests etc. This milk thus gets discarded from the mainline distribution and processing leading to apparent loss of milk production.
Socio-psychological factors: –Various social taboos and religious beliefs are still prevalent. The fact that our holy cow is the main driver of the dairy industry keeps this sector to get modernized. Another aspect is lack of cooperation among family members and lack of time after other agricultural work.
Misinformation or lack of information: –Farmers of some parts of our nation still don’t rely or trust on scientific information provided by extension workers and veterinary health professionals due to their strong belief in their customs and traditions. Data also shows 16% people of adopters are laggard who are not ready to adopt the new techniques even after presenting with scientific proof.
Other Constraints: –Lack of professionalism, lack of coordination and cooperation in between agencies involved in dairy development. Wide mandate and duplication of services, inadequate participation of NGOs and R&D organizations, politicization of dairy cooperation are the other lacunae of today’s dairy sector.

Mitigation Strategies:

Amidst all the acclamation regarding India’s Dairy Industry. The present situation indeed necessitates us to contemplate regarding certain facets of Indian dairying. Addressing which we not only can further excel in our production amplitude but can also put check on certain aspects that may possess risk to this industry in future. Some strategies can be followed by combined efforts of government, professionals and dairy farmers as:

Cold chain Maintenance and its Alternatives: –

Environmentally controlled containers for storage of milk should be developed and made available to farmers at reasonable cost. Also, they should be given alternatives such as value addition in form of cheese, curd, ghee, buttermilk which are having better shelf-life and more profit margin. Government can provide incentives and subsidies to dairy farmers to adopt them faster. These 2 changes may significantly cut down post-production milk losses.

Infrastructure development:

Many policies and schemes are run by government like Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) and Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund to enhance the farmers price realisation, increase livestock export contribution, betterment of milk processing plants. Proper implementation and continuity of such programmes is the need of the hour. There is a need to educate the farmers about the modern and innovative farm design ideas. Better and scientifically designed infrastructure would decrease stress in animals due to space constraint leading to their better milk yield.

Cattle Breeding Programmes:

The Indo-Swiss Project of Kerala, AICRP on cattle breeding etc. are the initiatives taken earlier to shift the cattle gene pool towards more productivity. However, the adoption of this idea by farmers still requires educating the farmers about that specific breeds, body characteristic, nutritional requirement in their local language. Subsidized semen and feed rates can only encourage the laggards to try something new. Advancements in research in field of animal genetics and breeding is need of the hour to increase per capita milk yield.

Choice of the Animal:

As the cross-bred and the exotic require more scientific management and their maintenance needs are also high in order to cope with the heat stress, production stress and other health related issues. Thus, the kind of breed chosen to be reared should be kept in mind, proper information regarding the breed characteristic should be provided to the farmers. Provision of resources like fodder, farm equipment, supplements on a subsidised rate should be there.

Health-care facilities:

The country holds a lot of scope in the form of young veterinarians and budding scientists. Nevertheless, the huge cost involved in the animal health care, lack of R&D, infrequent vet visits to farm can only be tackled by government interventions at ground level. Gynaecological issues that lead to most of the reasons for deceased production can be managed by trained professionals only. Thus, employing veterinarians specially dedicated to teach and employ better oestrous detection and artificial insemination techniques at field level in more no. can make significant improvements.

Conclusion:

The current scenario narrates that per capita milk production of our best breed i.e. sahiwal is about 800kg per lactation and we are dreaming to match per capita milk production of worlds best breeds as HF and Jersey which is about 6000 kg per lactation. No doubts it won’t be an easy downhill to walk down smoothly towards this destination but ladies and gentlemen being Indians we are now adopted to accomplish such seemingly impossible tasks like we have done earlier too in COVID era. On ground level, if we become successful in even increasing this per capita yield by some percent, it will not only furnish better income to farmers but will contribute firmly towards nation’s economy too, keeping in mind the huge resource we have as world’s largest livestock population. Multisector collaborative approach should be taken to keep our dairy industry ever flourishing combining genetics people, livestock management scientists, engineers, policymakers, government officials and representatives of farmers.

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