CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE THE PRODUCTIVITY OF INDIAN DAIRY BREEDS

CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE THE PRODUCTIVITY OF INDIAN DAIRY BREEDS

 Akankhya Chakravarty¹ and Kautuk Kumar Sardar^2*

¹Fourth Professional Year, BVSc & AH,

²Professor, Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology

College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry,

Odisha University of Agriculture & Technology,

Bhubaneswar-751 003, Odisha, INDIA

*Email: kksardar@ouat.ac.in

 Abstract:

The Indian dairy industry has been a crucial part of country’s economy. As we have already stepped into 2024, the industry finds itself at a crucial juncture, brimming with both opportunities and challenges. Exotic cows produce more milk as compared to desi breeds, but adaptability of exotic breed is quite difficult in our climate. Although we produce quantitively high amount of milk, our quality is still lower due to genetic effect of our Indian breeds, low availability of fodder, poor hygienic conditions, lack of education and training. Strategic steps can be taken to face these challenges by artificial insemination and genetic improvement, Use of good quality semen during AI, improving the feed and fodder, supplementation of mineral mixture and vitamins will definitely improve the health status of dairy cows which ultimately benefit the milk consumers in augmenting their health and wellness.

 Introduction:

India is the world’s top producer and consumer of milk. The livestock sector contributes 4.11% of the gross domestic product and 25.6% of the agricultural GDP (Prabhakar et al., 2020). The structured and primarily unorganized portions of the Indian dairy sector each account for 75% of the market.Dairy is the single largest agricultural commodity contributing 5 per cent of the national economy and employing more than 8 crore farmers directly. India ranks first in milk production contributing 24.64 percent of global milk production. As per Basic Animal Husbandry, 2023 Report, the top 5 milk-producing states are: Uttar Pradesh (15.7 %, 31.8 MMT), Rajasthan (14.6%, 30.7 MMT), Madhya Pradesh (8.73%, 18.2 MMT), Gujarat (7.6%, 15.9 MMT) and Andhra Pradesh (7.0%, 14.7 MMT). Moreover, Karnataka recorded the highest annual growth rate at 8.76%, followed by West Bengal (8.65%) and Uttar Pradesh (6.99%)

Dr. Verghese Kurien, known as India’s Milkman, came up with the idea of White Revolution in India. National Dairy Development Board and Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. were formed under his leadership. The NDDB launched the White Revolution in 1970s. The operation flood’s foundation was set by local milk producer cooperatives.

The main objective was to create a flood of milk by increase production, increase the incomes of the rural population, employment generation with sustainable development and provide milk to customers at fair prices.

Potential benefits of milk production:

Milk production serves as major source of income for the rural herd owners.

Milk is around the year product. It is not seasonal, and only stops in the dry period of the animal.

Milk acts as a buffer for the farmers along with crop production. It helps in the conditions where the crop production is affected like drought and floods.

It provides huge employment opportunities to the women farmers, as they can take care of the cows, even by staying at home.

Cows not only provide with milk, but the milk can be used to produce several processed products like cheese, butter, ghee, curd, ice-cream and paneer.

Milk is itself considered as a complete meal; it is highly nutritious.

It boosts other sectors like fodder production, manure, bio composting.

Comparison of milk production between Indigenous and exotic breeds:

India’s milk production increased by 3.8% year-on-year, reaching 230.58 million tonnes in 2022-23. Average rate of milk yield in various breeds (kg/day) (Source- Basic Animal Husbandry Statistics, 2023)

Exotic Cows	Cross breed cows	Indigenous cows	Non-descript cows	Indigenous buffalo	Non-descript buffalo	Goat
11.42	8.41	4.17	2.87	6.76	4.82	0.50

 

The average total production from the exotic breeds is much higher compared to the production of our non-descript and indigenous breeds. The exotic breeds area adapted to a cooler climate, so they do not face heat stress quite often and are very consistent in their production. Apart from this, their genes from many generated have been inherited for production of good milk quality and quantity.

Challenges in relation to low productivity of Indian dairy breeds:

The amount of grazing land is being drastically reduced every year due to industrialisation, which causes a shortage of feeds and fodder to meet demand. The small and marginal farmers, as well as the agricultural labourers working on the growth of the dairy sector, have limited financial resources, which leads to inadequate nutrition.

India faces several challenges in dairy farming, impacting the productivity of its dairy animals. Let’s explore some of these challenges:

1. Genetic make-up:

The Indian dairy cattle breeds are genetically lean bodied with comparatively low milk productivity than the exotic breeds. Due to less cross breeding and more in breeding approaches, the genetic potentiality remains unchanged. The age of sexual maturity also arrives late in Indian breeds which further lengthens the process. Exotic breeds like Jersey and Holstein Friesian come to first heat by 1.5 years, but it can go up to 2.5 years in indigenous breeds.

2. Shortage of Feed/Fodder:

Majority of Indian cattle population are reared by the farmers in villages who belong to the poor category. Feeding of a balanced diet with at least two-third of the diet containing green roughages and one-third concentrates is essential for good milk production. Routine supplementation of the diet with vitamins and minerals is equally important. Efficient utilization of available grain and fodder is hindered by inefficient animals competing with profitable dairy animals.

3. Hygiene Conditions:

Neglecting proper protection for cattle leaves them vulnerable to harsh weather conditions, affecting their health and productivity. In rural areas, there are cattle sheds without proper drainage, without concrete flooring making them susceptible

Mastitis is brought on by the unhygienic environment in the milking parlours and cattle sheds. Milk and other milk products lose their shelf life and viability due to unhygienic manufacturing conditions.

4. Poor artificial insemination and shortage of semen doses:

If our indigenous breeds are not timely inseminated with breeds of higher quality, then there would not be any improvement in productivity. Also, on an average, each cow requires two semen doses for a successful fertilisation. There is non- availability of semen doses in such a large quantity. There are problems like poor semen quality, shortage of bulls, anoestrus and repeat breeding cases in case of cows.

5. Health Management:

There is not a sufficient level of protection against many cow illnesses. Disease outbreaks, such as foot-and-mouth disease and brucellosis significantly impact productivity levels in Indian dairy cows, buffaloes, pigs, goats, and sheep. These diseases always occur in outbreak form and have post cure effects including mastitis, decrease in milk production, intolerance to heat, lameness, dermatitis etc. Due to improper vaccination, these diseases have re occurrence and causes huge economic losses.

6. Education and Training:

Enhancing knowledge and skills among dairy farmers can lead to better management practices and improved productivity. Lack of good extension workers, lack of key communicators and educated personnels in villages and rural areas is a major cause for inability of proper dissemination of information.

Apart from these major challenges, there are many minor lacunas which act as a challenge in good dairy production in our country. Working on these challenges, we can largely improve the conditions for improved breeds od dairy cows for increased milk production and doubling farmers income.

 Mitigation strategies to improve milk production:

In order to maintain India as the top milk producing country in the global milk map, it is time to restructure and revitalize the present institutional set-up in the livestock sector, enhance institution-level efficiency, and promote new institutional models to handle the emerging challenges in livestock sector development. The following potential points can be pondered over as mitigation strategies:

1. Specific Breeds and Up-gradation:

Rashtriya Gokul Mission has been started in December 2014 by the Government of India to improve the genetics of the nondescript bovine population and develop and conserve indigenous breeds through selective breeding in the breeding tract. It comprises two components namely National Program for Bovine Breeding (NPBB) and National Mission on Bovine Productivity (NMBP).Rashtriya Gokul Mission aims for the development and conservation of indigenous breeds.

Indigenous cattle breeds like Gir, Sahiwal, Rathi, Deoni, and Tharparkar are essential for breed improvement.Upgrading nondescript cattle using elite indigenous breeds helps enhance milk production and productivity.Mitigation strategies are in vogue to increase the number of disease-free, high genetic merit females and stop the spread of diseases. Subsequently, there is provision for distribution of disease-free, high genetic merit bulls for natural service.

2. Artificial insemination and genetic improvement: 

• Genetic procedures like crossbreeding, upgrading, outcrossing methods should be used to improve the genetic make-up of animals.
• Crossing the non-descript breeds with good indigenous breeds like Sahiwal, Red Sindhi would lead to good daughter cow genome.
• The dams and sire to be selected should have a good family tree with high milk yield, better disease resistant properties, better heat tolerance capacity and other favourable factors.

Use of good quality semen during AI

• The semen doses should be collected from healthy bulls with no history of disease occurrence, and which have produced good quality daughter cows.
• Use frozen semen from stations that adhere to minimum standards for production and processing, graded “A” or “B” by the Central Monitoring Unit of the Government of India. These standards ensure genetic progress and reduce the risk of disease transmission.
• Properly identify each semen container, canister, and goblet for easy tracing of a bull’s semen.
• Transfer semen doses under liquid nitrogen to prevent damage to sperm viability.
• Use a polystyrene or thermocole box for transferring semen straws into goblets.
• Regularly replenish liquid nitrogen in storage and distribution containers.

3. Improving feed and fodder:

• Use mixed ration to ensure balanced diet.
• Diet having high levels of grain may cause metabolic disturbances, like ruminal acidosis, and may ultimately result in low milk and milk fat production.
• Green fodder (e.g., Hybrid napier, guinea and para grass) sustains and improves milk production.
• Dry fodder should be mixed with legumes like berseem. Combine it with concentrates like oilcakes for a balanced diet.
• To avoid these issues, fat can be supplemented to enhance the energy density of the diet. Fat addition also has other potential benefits, such as increased absorption of fat-soluble nutrients and less dustiness of feed. In addition to this, feeding fat to dairy cows is known to improve fertility.
• Diets for dairy cows should contain both rumen degradable protein and rumen undegradable protein, at an ideal ratio of 65:35.

4. Supplementation of mineral mixture and vitamins:
5. Calcium: Essential for bone health and milk production.
6. Phosphorus: Also vital for bone health and milk production.

• Additionally, trace minerals like iron, iodine, copper, zinc, and selenium are necessary in smaller amounts. These minerals contribute to the overall health and productivity of dairy cattle.

1. Vitamin-E along with Selenium are known to increase fertility.
2. Improvement in Prevention and control of diseases:

The vaccination schedule should be followed efficiently. The animals should have up-to-date vaccination status for diseases like foot and mouth disease, brucellosis, and haemorrhagic septicaemia, which have a very negative impact on the future milk production of diseased animals. Ensuring proper vaccination is the duty of both animal owner and the concerned veterinarians. The booster doses should be completed also.Apart from this, the farms should be disinfected regularly along with their feeding pails, the drinking water, their feed storage area, and everything must be kept sterilised.

6. Education and general awareness:

Extension workers have major role to play in this aspect. Awareness programs should be conducted to educate the animal owners on how to maintain the herd, ensure good feeding systems and proper treatment and vaccination against diseases. There should be leaders from each area who can communicate with the higher authorities and seek help.

Way forward:

India has rapidly emerged as one of the largest producers of milk, accounting for 18.5% of global milk production but inefficiencies in our dairy supply chain pose a serious health risk. Organizational support for milk producers through the cooperative sector should be streamlined. Steps should be taken to reorganize and develop the rural market for milk. Take essential steps to reduce the effect of a middleman because the middleman exploited the dairy sector farmers. The governments have to give support to the dairy sector farmers by providing subsidies, proper prices, and market facilities. The necessary assistance for the producers to reach value-added markets including ice cream, yogurt, cheese, and whey should be provided. A reliable market and a profitable price for the milk must be provided to the dairy sector farmers.

Conclusion:

The dynamics of the Indian dairy industry is much different from developed countries. Improvement in the milk yielding status of the dairy animals will not only help the farmers to generate more income, but also aid in enhancing the entire country’s GDP. The primary aim is to identify the area-wise and breed-wise challenges and apply appropriate mitigation plans to eliminate the challenges. This is a long-term process and needs dedicated efforts of everyone involved in the process from the villagers to leaders to veterinarians. Use of modern and advanced technologies can uplift the dairy sector providing employment opportunities to a huge mass of people. Young entrepreneurs should engage themselves in this sector and work towards the betterment of the dairy sector as well as the society.

References:

1. Basic Animal Husbandry Statistics (BAHS). 2023.| Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Government of India (dahd.nic.in)
2. Annual Report, NABARD National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mumbai (1999).
3. Dairy Sector In India: Significance, Challenges and Way forward – ClearIAS
4. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1907224
5. Karmakar , K. G. and  Banerjee, G. D. 2016. Opportunities and challenges in the Indian Dairy Industry. Retrieved May 16, 2017, from Dairy News of India: http://dairynews.in/ opportunitiesIndian-dairy-industry.
6. Prabhakar , P., Bharti, SK and Pramod Kumar. 2020. Challenges and Strategies for Sustainable Dairy Farming in India: A Review.   J. Curr. Microbiol. App. Sci11: 4065-4071