New Delhi
Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Parshottam Rupala has said that agriculture is the back bone of rural economy in the country and dairying plays an important role in it. Even though India is the largest milk producer in the world, there is ample scope to improve per animal productivity. Rupala stated it while inaugurating a National Workshop on Improving Feed Production Efficiency & Quality Control Aspects of Cattle Feed Plants organized by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in Anand. Dilip Patel, Member of Parliament, Dilip Rath, Chairman, NDDB and Dr HPS Makkar, FAO, Rome graced the occasion. Around 200 cattle feed plant professionals from all over the country participated.
Rupala said that with the increase in demand for milk, productivity of dairy animals should increase. It is time to refocus our efforts in providing good quality feed and mineral mixture and put up concerted efforts in promoting different variants of compound cattle feed for different categories of animals. For ensuring quality in feed production, we need to have qualified trained manpower, efficient plants and machinery and technical expertise to produce right type of feeds. Rupala thanked NDDB for organizing this workshop to address all these issues with participation from dairy cooperatives all over the country. The Minister hoped that this workshop will discuss ways to achieve global standards in the feed production and requested NDDB to take benefit from budget allocation by Government of India for modernization of dairy technology.
Parshottam Rupala also launched NDDB’s Cattle Feed Knowledge Portal, an interactive knowledge platform on various aspects of compound cattle feed production. The portal will also have information on least cost formula for feeds, suppliers of feed ingredients, raw material specifications as well as a discussion forum to share information.
Dilip Patel released a booklet titled Understanding Your Bovine. The booklet creates awareness on easily discernible signs of bovines so that corrective measures can be taken for management, feeding, health, hygiene practices, levels of discomfort etc, thereby avoid losses which at times could be disastrous.
While delivering the welcome address, Dilip Rath, Chairman, NDDB said that India’s model of milk production is based on feeding crop residues and agricultural by-products and using family labour to add value to resources which otherwise have limited alternative economic value. It is in this context that the role of compound cattle feed in animal nutrition to help support the increase in milk production becomes significant. The Chairman said that feeding balanced ration can help the milch animals produce milk commensurate with their genetic potential with the attendant benefits of lower cost, increased SNF, higher immunity to disease, improved reproductive efficiency and reduced methane emissions. In the absence of adequate quantity of quality green fodder, concentrate feeds provide bulk of essential nutrients in the diet of dairy animals.
The Chairman, NDDB informed that the dairy cooperative network produces about 3.6 million tonnes per annum with an installed capacity of about 5 million tonnes in 70 cattle feed plants. In addition the private sector produces an additional 4.5 million tonnes. A total of 8 million tonnes per annum is sufficient for only about 8 million of the more than 100 million breedable animals.
During the workshop issues related to cattle feed production, quality control aspects in a feed plant, improving feed production efficiency, latest trends in feed milling operation, least cost feed formulation and modernization of a quality control lab were discussed in details.
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