Selective cross-breeding, elimination of low-yielding breeds, induction of high-yielding breeds, focussed disease preventive and control programmes, augmenting feed availability, ensuring better income to dairy farmers and providing insurance coverage to animals are some of the components of the strategy. The average milk yield of cattle in the State is 7.1 litres per day and through various programmes the Animal Husbandry Department is targeting to increase it to 10 litres.

Animal Husbandry Department Director R. Vijayakumar told The Hindu that according to the norms set by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the per capita milk requirement is about 240 gm a day. Based on this, it can be assumed that the State’s milk demand is 80 lakh litres a day. But the domestic production is only 60 lakh litres a day. This means that the State’s milk import requirement is about 20 lakh litres a day.

Dr. Vijayakumar said that under the Ksheeradhara scheme for augmenting the productivity of cattle, farmers are given subsidy for artificial insemination for selective cross-breeding with high-yielding breeds such as Holstein Friesian of the U.S. and Jersey of the U.K. The semen for this is imported from the cattle farms approved by the Government of India.

Source: The Hindu