Chandigarh
5 November 2022
DIVYA AZAD
Sustainable dairy and livestock management practices was the subject of an engaging discussion as part of a special conference at the CII AgroTech 2022 on Saturday. The conference, with participation from eminent experts and businesses, was part of the events on Day 2 of the four-day 15th edition of the premier agri and food technology fair.
The theme of the event was ‘Digital transformation for sustainable agriculture and food security.’
In his opening remarks to set the context, Mr Gurmeet Singh Bhatia, Chairman, Ajooni Biotech Ltd, said, “Livestock contributes to 40% of global agriculture output. Over 70 million farmers are directly involved in dairy farming. We are here to exchange ideas on achieving sustainable diary management.”
He also added that India has an abundance of genetic resources for dairy animals, both in terms of population and diversity. If a farmer is educated and knowledgeable, he or she will set an example for the poor and laggards who are not ready to accept change.
Mr Rick Nobel, Agriculture Attache, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in his address mentioned that agriculture and animal husbandry is bilateral to Dutch association with India. In the Netherlands, there is continuous interaction between farmers and government, retailers, and bankers. He added that Dutch companies are working on QR codes in India to bring more awareness among consumers regarding where the milk is exactly coming from which can tell the city, process followed and the cow that was milked.
Sachin Sharma, Vice-President, Operations, ITC Ltd, said, “Dairy is a success story for India and the involvement of women in the industry is very high. A challenge is that the productivity has been low, but improving. Integrated solutions are needed.”
Mr Pranatharthiharan Natarajan, Business Development Lead, India, Thyssenkrupp Ltd, “There is an alternative to pasteurization of milk, called HPP. However, it lacks its implementation in India, it does not kill the nutrients and does not change the taste. This will also help India’s efforts at export as this technology takes the shelf life of liquid milk to 45 days.”
Dr Chirantan Kadian, President, Indian Veterinary Association, said, “We can use cow urine to make phenyl. We need to use our Pashudhan more effectively. Stray cattle management is a very big problem. Local bodies are wasting resources on tackling this, to very little effectiveness.”
Concluding the session, Mr Bhatia said, “The discussion has been comprehensive and touched all aspects of sustainable dairy. Today’s dialogue will have benefitted the industry and other stakeholders.”
Dr. Jaswinder Bhatti, Chairman, Daintech Dairy Development Centre, said “Integrating technology in dairy farming is the need of the hour. Use your mobile phones to good use by recording details of your livestock. Farmers today face difficulties in tracking their livestock data. We have built a software in DMEC where through RFID tags we place sensors that are placed on livestock’s neck to track them. We have developed Allflex monitoring technology through SenseHub app that tracks livestock’s activities like movement, eating, ruminating, and 14 behaviours that livestocks show. This gets updated every hour on your mobile phones. All this data is used in assessing reproduction in livestock. This is crucial because if reproduction in livestock fails, dairy as a sector will fail.”
