Low productivity of Indian dairy animals: Challenges & Mitigation strategies
Mamta Meena, Meemansha Sharma, S. Ilavarsan, Rakesh Karwa, Poorba Sen, G. Ravi Prakash, Sunita Kumawat and T. U. Singh
Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology, ICAR-IVRI, Izatnagar, Bareilly
Introduction
Indian dairy industry is one of the important industries for India. India is world’s largest milk producer. India dominates about 13% of world milk production and India consume about its 100% of production. Milk is the second largest agricultural commodity produced in our country next only to rice. Considering the biological value of milk protein, our traditional habit of including milk in daily dietary have been one of the most important factors that had saved millions of children of our country from developing malnutrition syndromes. Since, ever growing human population is making scarcely available land still scarcer, our aim to improve milk output should be by way of improving productivity of the animals rather than increasing the heads of bovine population. Around 20 per cent of the milk produced in India is from the organized sector and 80 per cent is from the unorganized milk producers.
(Source: http://istockphoto.com)
Livestock plays a vital role in the Indian economy. About 20.5 million people depend upon the livestock sector for his or her livelihood. The livestock sector contributes 4.11% of the gross domestic product and 25.6% of the agricultural GDP. The most important number of cows in the country is 192.49 million and buffalo is 109.85 million. The contribution of dairy animal is widely recognized. Dairy farming involves a group of interaction of many factors that influence production and reproduction, environment and management. Dairy cooperatives cover about 60,000 villages all over India and only 12-14 per cent of total milk production is canalized through organized sector. Concerted efforts should, therefore be directed towards unorganized dairy farmers by providing necessary inputs and make them to adopt newer milk production technologies.
Challenges faced by the livestock sector in India affecting the productivity of farm animals are one of the major challenges. The average annual milk yield of Indian cattle is 1172 kg which is only about 50 per cent of the global average.
Challenges for Indian dairy industry
Climate change: In India, climate change is believed to reduce milk production by 1.6 MT & 15 MT in 2020 & 2050 respectively. Due to climate change, developing countries may lose 25 per cent of animal production. The climate change will adversely affect the livestock directly as well as indirectly. Directly, due to increased heat stress, physiological (rectal temperature, respiration rate, dry matter intake etc.) as well as production functions (milk production, meat production) will be impaired. Indirectly, climate change will affect the livestock by reduced water availability, feed and fodder shortages, reducing biodiversity and increasing the incidences of vector-borne livestock diseases. India’s huge population of ruminants contributes to greenhouse gases emission. Reducing greenhouse gases through mitigation and adaptation strategies will be a major challenge.
Disease outbreak: The frequent outbreaks of diseases like Foot and Mouth Diseases, Black Quarter infection; Influenza, etc. continue to affect Livestock health and lowers productivity. Currently most of the milking animals are not screened on regular interval of time. So there are lots of chances that some diseases can transmitted to human beings. Farmers use antibiotics and chemical drugs to increase the production of milk this will also affect the quality of milk. These issues can be avoided by regular screening of animals in animal husbandry and also maintaining history records of health, feed etc. Due to lack of knowledge, lack of proper medical history the mortality of cattle is too high. Cattle farmer also face problem in maintaining vaccination and health history of his livestock. Other major challenges of dairy industry are inefficient supply chain and traditional way of rearing cattle.
Breeding policies: Crossbreeding of indigenous species with exotic stocks to enhance the genetic potential of different species has been successful only to a limited extent. Limited Artificial Insemination services owing to a deficiency in quality germ plasm, infrastructure and technical manpower coupled with poor conception rate following artificial insemination have been the major impediments. After more than three decades of crossbreeding, the crossbred population is only 16.6 per cent in cattle, 21.5 per cent in pigs and 5.2 per cent in sheep.
Though globalization will create avenues for increased participation in international trade, stringent food safety, and quality norms would be required. The livestock sector did not receive the policy and financial attention it deserved. The sector received only about 12 per cent of the total public expenditure on agriculture and allied sectors, which is disproportionately lesser than its contribution to agricultural GDP. The sector has been neglected by financial institutions. The share of livestock in the total agricultural credit has hardly ever exceeded 4% in the total (shortterm, medium-term and long-term).
The institutional mechanisms to protect animals against risk are not strong enough. Currently, only 6 per cent of the animal heads (excluding poultry) are provided insurance cover. Livestock extension has remained grossly neglected in the past. Only about 5 per cent of the farm households in India access information on livestock technology. These indicate a sub-optimal outreach of the financial and information delivery systems. Livestock derives a major part of its energy requirement from agricultural by-products and residues. Hardly 5 per cent of the cropped area is utilized to grow fodder.
High cost of milk production: Indian milk producers have to reduce the cost of milk production. The main reason of the high cost of milk production is due to average milk yield of Indian cattle is much less i.e. 987 kg /year compare to 6273 kg/year in Denmark, 5289 kg/ year in France, 5938 kg/year in Canada, 5462 kg/year in United Kingdom, 7038 kg/year in USA and 11000 kg/year in Israel. So farmer of other countries have to spend much times less in compare to Indian farmers. Reason behind high production of milk is not climate. Israel has climate of 47C – 45C in summer and in winter it as 4C- 5C. So this high yield has been achieved through proper feed, water management and housing, apart from superior quality germplasm. Israel cows have archive this much high milk yield by giving up high fat content. Then also per capita fat production of Israel is higher than India.
High cost in milk handling and marketing: In India dairy penetration is much less. Majority of milk is collected by private players and either sold to private dairies or to other member of channel. Milk passes through several levels till it reaches to pasteurization facility in dairy. After milk reaches to daily milk also passes through several distribution channel this also increase cost of milk. Whole process has double the milk price. In Gujarat cooperative dairy purchases one litre of milk from farmers at the rate of 25-28 rs/litre. End consumer due to high milk handling cost these dairies sell milk at the rate of 48-52 rs/litre. However there is good scope for reducing the number of agencies handling the milk to reduce the cost of handling and we can significantly reduce the retail price of milk.
Poor quality milk due to unhygienic milk handling: Main reason of poor quantity of milk is due to unhygienic and poor condition of animal farms and dairies. Even due to high demand in foreign country we cannot export such poor quality of milk product. Many times Indian milk products get rejected in foreign nations due to unhygienic milking milk contains high number of microbial count. Reasons behind the quality affected in India are due to poor health of animal, polluted water and food and unclean surrounding in farm. So it is necessary to consider all this challenges in improving milk production.
Poor feeding management: About 38% of dairy farmers find difficulties in managing dry fodder especially during rainy season due to poor resources, excessive rains in the neighboring states from where they were purchasing dry fodder. Quality of feed should be checked regularly. There must be pollution control in the feed and water used in cattle farms. Dairy farmers are unaware of latest advancements in the field of animal nutrition, particularly in enhanced utilization of prevailing feed resources, augmentation of roughage-based diets, feeding of mineral mixture, common salt for enhancing the animal’s milk production and reproductive health.
Mitigation strategies for Indian dairy industry
SOPs in Dairy Industry: Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in dairy are instructional roadmaps for the entire dairy’s operations. Dairy businesses worldwide widely use process automation that overcomes the shortcomings of existing methods. Dairy consultants try to ensure that SOPs and process automation covers the following facets of dairy businesses, i.e.
- General herd health management including vaccination and treatments
- Reproduction management (deliveries through timed AI protocols)
- Milking management (procedures, parlor setup, cleaning, sanitation)
- Veterinary Assistance
- Productivity management (including breed selection and tracking)
- Feed management (including newborn calves)
- Waste management (including newborn calves)
- Maintenance crew
- Organizational blueprint (including manpower utilization)
- Production and supply chain safety
- Location management (diagram or maps of where animals and facilities are located)
Shelter modification: Shades are the simplest method to reduce the impact of high solar radiation. Most of the researchers have focused on providing artificial shade to cattle for reducing the heat stress and improving their productivity. These researchers who mostly belong to developed countries call for building complex housing structures for providing shade as well as ventilation. Major design parameters for artificial shade structures include: orientation, floor space, height, ventilation, roof construction, feeding and water facilities, waste management system etc. Blocking effects of heat stress through the use of properly constructed shade structures alone increased milk production by 10-19 per cent.
For shades, it is appropriate that the smallholder should use natural shade. Trees are an excellent source of shade and if given the choice cows will generally seek the protection of trees rather than man-made structures. They are not only effective blockers of solar radiation but the evaporation of moisture from leaf surfaces cools the surrounding air without appreciably interfering with air circulation.
For housing the animals in India, straw that attached sheds or tall, simple, asbestos shades with reflective white outside and absorptive black under-surface of roof are appropriate and cost-effective. Water application for 15-20 minutes before milking in buffaloes increases the milk yield. Wallowing ponds can also be an alternative for buffaloes and cattle to alleviate stress. Small holder farmers can construct village ponds for their cattle and buffaloes. The cooling ponds can lower the cow’s temperature by 1-2°F depending on the time of day they entered the cooling ponds. Using a cooling pond on a farm may benefit both animal welfare and production for areas where heat stress is a problem without compromising milk quality.
Nutritional management: The next adaptation and mitigation strategy which has been proposed by certain researchers is nutritional management. Again certain myths are associated with nutritional management as adaptation and mitigation strategy which are tried to be countered in this section. Nutritional management involves various aspects, some of which are discussed here under as following:-
Ration adjustments: As the dry matter intake is decreased in heat stressed dairy cattle, so the goal of ration adjustments is to adjust rations to increase energy and protein intake while maintaining rumen and cow health. Some of the measures are as follows:
Balancing ration protein levels to minimize high levels of soluble and rumen degradable protein; adding buffers (sodium bicarbonate, magnesium oxide, and sodium sesquicarbonate) to help in maintaining a normal rumen environment; increasing ration magnesium and potassium levels to counteract the higher potassium and magnesium losses in heat-stressed cows; adding yeast or yeast cultures to the ration etc.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of extension agencies to educate the farmers about the climate change and corresponding ration adjustments. Also, the government should supply mineral mixture free of cost or at very cheap rates so as to provide different buffers in the diet and to avoid mineral imbalances.
Feeding management: The feeding management practices used also offer opportunities for alteration in trying to improve productivity of livestock. Some of the key considerations in this area are: fresh, palatable, high quality feed should be in the feed mangers at all times to provide maximum opportunity for feed consumption. Enteric fermentation is the primary source of CH4 emissions in cattle milk production at the farm level. Enhancing the quality of feed, particularly roughage, can potentially decrease enteric methane production.
References:
Jadawala, R., & Patel, S. (2017). Challenges of indian dairy industry (In the aspects of Cattle Farms). Ind J App Res, 7, 516-517.
Juniwal, C., Khan, A. R., Ganesh, A., Carvalho, R. M., & Karunamay, S. (2022). Constraints in milk production of dairy cattle: A review. Pharma Innov. J, 3991-3994.
Mahajan, S., Papang, J. S., Singh, S., & Datta, K. K. (2015). Adaptation and mitigation strategies for dairy cattle: Myths and realities in Indian condition-A review. Agricultural Reviews, 36(4), 287-295.
Nirmala, T. V., Harikumar, S., George, A., & Reddy, A. D. (2023). Green House Gas Emissions and Mitigation Strategies for Sustainable Dairy Farming. Journal of Experimental Agriculture International, 45(11), 92-103.
https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/indian-dairy-cows
