The ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI)-Karnal will work on promoting indigenous breeds of cow to tackle the problem of poor milk productivity and climate change.
“This is the need of the hour as there was a time when we needed crossbred and foreign breeds to tackle the problem of milk production and now we need to promote indigenous breeds to deal with the problem of poor productivity and the changing climate conditions”, said Dr Dheer Singh, director of NDRI Karnal.
He said that even the government is focusing on the improvement of milk production and the quality of indigenous breeds as they easily adapt to the local environment and are more climate-resilient than crossbred cattle but their milk production is lower. The NDRI said it was working on it to improve the milk productivity of ingenious breeds of cows.
“This is called need-based research, when the crossbred were promoted there was a need to increase milk production as now we are self-sufficient in milk production, but now there is a need to increase milk productivity which is around 6 kg,” Singh said.
Dr Ajay Dang, a senior scientist of the NDRI, said another reason to conduct research and promote indigenous breeds is that now the climate is getting warmer, and there is a need to develop breeds as per the climate conditions.
He said that NDRI is also working on research to provide sex-sorted semen at cheaper rates to the farmers as the move will help to improve milk productivity and breeding.
“The government had imported this technology of sex-sorted semen but it is very expensive as it costs around ₹1,200 per dose, and all farmers cannot afford it. But we are conducting research on it, and we have got some positive leads, and if it is successful the cost of the dose will come down to around ₹200”, he added.
