March 2, 2012

To be able to feed animals adequately, India's National Dairy Plan (NDP) aims to take technology to producers so that benefit of higher genetic progress actually results in enhanced milk production.

The Dairy plan aims at contributing to increasing milk production by increasing milch animal productivity in existing herds through a focused and systematic process for breeding and feeding, a Dairy Development Board release said on Thursday (Mar 1).

While attending an interaction session on February 27-28 with a group of dairy farmers from Bihar and Karnataka during an orientation programme at NDDB, Minister of State for Agriculture Charan Das Mahant said: "Dairy Board's efforts in the area of capacity building of milk producers with focus on orienting them on recent trends and developments in dairy sector."

India, the world's largest milk producer, is presently producing 112 million tonnes of milk annually and the projected demand of milk is 180 million tonnes by 2021-22.

The NDDB focused efforts in quality breeding and nutrition services enabling milk producers to improve the productivity of their animals were detailed in a presentation given to the minister.

The minister was explained about NDDB's ration balancing advisory services for improving the net daily income of milk producers through increase in daily income of milk producers through increase in daily milk/fat yield and reduction in the cost of feeding, the release said.