The Story of Indian Cattle

The Story of Indian Cattle

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The Story of Indian Cattle

• Nowadays The word cattle, especially “COW” is becoming hot topic for every media house.It should be important for us too.isn’t it?? we have read a lot about all those issues which is in everyday news. Here we will read about Examination related information.
• This article is a collection of three areas. It is about White revolution,Native breeds and difference between native and exotic species. at last we will have a look on Government of india schemes and its features which are all focusing on cattle.

White Revolution in India

• The package programme adopted to increase the production of milk is known as White Revolution in India. The White Revolution in India occurred in 1970, when the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was established to organize the dairy development through the co-operative societies. Varghese Kuerin was the father of White Revolution in India.
• The dairy development programme through co-operative societies was first established in the state of Gujarat. The co-operative societies were most successful in the Anand District of Gujarat. The co-operative societies are owned and managed by the milk producers. These co-operatives apart from financial help also provide consultancy. The increase in milk production has also been termed as Operation Flood.

Objectives

• The procurement, transportation, storage of milk at the chilling plants.
• Provide cattle feed.
• Production of wide varieties of milk products and their marketing management.
• Provide superior breeds of cattle (cows and buffaloes), health service, veterinary treatment, and artificial insemination facilities.
• Provide extension service.

Achievements

Some of the important achievements of the White Revolution are as under:

• The White Revolution made a sound impact on rural masses and encouraged them to take up dairying as a subsidiary occupation.
• India has become the leading producer of milk in the world.
• The import of milk and milk production has been reduced substantially.
• The small and marginal farmers and the landless labourers have been especially benefitted from the White Revolution.
• To ensure the success of Operation Flood Programme, research centres have been set up at Anand, Mehsana, and Palanpur (Banaskantha).
• Moreover, three regional centres are functioning at Siliguri, Jalandhar, and Erode. Presently, there are metro dairies in 10 metropolitan cities of the country, beside 40 plants with capacity to handle more than one lakh litres of milk.
• To improve the quality of livestock, extensive cross breeding has been launched.
• For ensuring the maintenance of disease-free status, major health schemes have been initiated.

 Problems and Prospects

• Collection of milk from the remote areas is expensive, time consuming, and not viable economically.
• In most of the villages the cattle are kept under unhygienic conditions.
• There are inadequate marketing facilities. The marketing infrastructure needs much improvement.
• The breeds of cattle is generally inferior.
• The extension service programme is not effective.

Indian Native Cattle Breeds

• A recent investigation by the Tehelka magazine arrived at the conclusion that in 10 years, India will be forced to start importing milk, and that Indian cow will cease to exist. Why? Due to several reasons:
  • India, over the past few decades, imported several exotic cow varieties to gain a boost in milk production. In Punjab, for example, 80% of the state's one lakh stray cattle are exotic breeds. These breeds theoretically produce a lot of milk, but are not well-adapted to Indian conditions.
  • 69% of Indian cows are owned by the economically poor strata of the society. These folks cannot afford to house these exotic breeds in regulated climate conditions.
  • The government has significantly mismanaged cow breeding. The average milk yield per animal in India is just 3.2 kgs, compared to a global average of 6.6 kgs. The dairy policy and outlook is highly outdated and needs to be replaced with modern, evidence-based thinking.
  • India has 37 pure cattle breeds. Five of these — Sahiwal, Gir, Red Sindhi, Tharparkar and Rathi — are known for their milking prowess. A few others, such as Kankrej, Ongole and Hariana, belong to dual breeds that have both milch and draught qualities; ie, they are good plough animals. The rest are pure draught breeds.

Tamilnadu Varieties

• The following are the native breeds of tamilnadu. knowing these things will give us an idea about our own breeds.

Cross breeding

• It is mating of animals of different breeds. Cross breeding is followed for breeding animals for milk production and meat production. In India zebu breeds of cows and nondescript cows are crossed with exotic breeds like Holstein Friesian, Brown Swiss and Jersey bulls or their semen, to enhance the milk production potential of the progeny.
• As selection is a slow process of genetic improvement cross breeding has been taken up as the national breeding for improving milk production in India. Cross breeding word was initiated at NDRI Bangalore, Live Stock farm and Allahabad Agricultural Institute. At present cross breeding work is going on at Military dairy farms, NDRI Karnal, All India coordinated Research project son Cattle, Collaboration projects like Indo-Swiss, Indo Australian, Indo-Danish, projects and also in the farmer’s field.

Advantage

1. The desirable characters of the exotic parent are transmitted to the progeny which the indigenous parent does not have.
2. In India Cross-breeding and cows is done by using the exotic bulls and the progeny inherit the desirable characters of the parent like high milk yield early maturity, higher birth weight of calves, better growth rates, better reproductive efficiency and indigenous parents characters like, heat tolerance, disease resistance ability to thrive on scanty feeding and coarse fodder etc.
3. In pairs the way to evolve new breeds with desirable characters. Hybrid vigour is made use of in the progency.
4. Results are seen more quickly in characters like milk yield in the crossbred progeny.

Cross-breed cattle in India

Disadvantages

1. The breeding merit of cross breed animals may be slightly reduced.
2. Cross breeding requires maintenance of two or more pure breeds in order to product the cross breeds.
3. The feeding and management of the crosses would be better, to enable them to express their production potential.

Desi cow’s agriculture benefit

Why it is so important to us?

• Desi Cow gives us the entire requirement of our farming activities in Agriculture.  It helps us in transportation of our goods.  It works in our agricultural lands.  Thus the food we consume is because of the help of this mother cow.  It gives us the medicine for our health.  It saves the crop from pest, insect and fungi.  Finally, it becomes a part of our family.
• For giving all the above; what we are giving?  We are giving all the unwanted items for humans such as grass, stray etc, after taking the oil from cotton seeds, ground nuts, coconut and the remaining thing is given to the cow. In case this is not required for cow, for human being it is a waste and in fact we have to spend money to dispose this.  Thus an environment recycle is done with the help of cow.

The significant features of Indian Cows

• The ability to shake only a particular part of the body, for example it can shake only the skin the stomach area without shaking the other part of the body.
• It can withstand the climatic conditions of this country, either hot, rain or cold.
• It delivers around 15 to 20 calf’s in his life span.
• It can walk for more kilometers and work hard accepting the climatic conditions of this part of the world.
• A cow in its lifespan feeds thousands of people, and one cow is sufficient to do farming in 10 acres of land.

A1 and A2 Milk

• The National Bureau of Animal Genetic Research has recently demonstrated the superior milk quality of Indian cattle breeds.
• After scanning 22 cattle breeds, scientists concluded that in five high milk-yielding native breeds – Red Sindhi, Sahiwal, Tharparkar, Rathi and Gir – the status of A2 allele of the beta casein gene was 100 per cent.  In other Indian breeds it was around 94 per cent, compared to only 60 per cent in exotic breeds like Jersey and HF.
• The A2 allele is responsible for making available more Omega-6 fatty acids in milk.  The pure Indian breed desi cow produces A2 milk, which contains less Betacosmophorine-7 (BCM-7), as opposed to the hybrid cows which generally produce A1 milk.

Benefits of Desi Cow Milk

• As per Ayurvedic tradition, Cow Ghee helps in the growth and development of Children’s brain.
• Regular consumption increases good (HDL) cholesterol (and not bad LDL cholesterol)
• Stimulates digestion and aids absorption of fat soluble vitamins
• An excellent all round anti-ageing vegetarian food & external applicant on the skin
• Desi Cow milk is like nectar, because it has amino acids which make its protein easily digestible
• It is a rich source of Vitamins like B2, B3 and A which help increasing immunity
• Cow Milk helps in reducing acidity, (a common problem today)
• Reduces chances of peptic ulcer
• Helps in reducing chances of colon, breast and skin cancer
• It is one of the best natural anti-oxidants

Contents of cow’s milk

100gms of Cows Milk contains:

• Phosphorous 0.93 gms -> Energy release for metabolic activity and physical activity
• Calcium 1.20gm -> Healthy bones and Teeth Iron 0.002 gm ->
• Magnesium -> for muscle function and elements Vanadium, chromium, tin, aluminum, abhrak and sisa.
• It has 25 types of minerals and Vitamins as:
  • Vitamin B12 – for production of healthy cells
  • Vitamin A – for good eyesight and immune function
  • Zinc – for immune function
  • Riboflavin – for healthy skin
  • Folate – for production of healthy cells
  • Vitamin C – for formation of healthy connective tissues
  • Iodine – for regulation of the body’s rate of metabolism.

Dairy Sector Schemes

Rashtriya Gokul Mission

• The mission is launched for conservation and development of indigenous breeds in a focused and scientific manner.
• It is a project under National Programme for Bovine Breeding and Dairy Development.
• The objectives of this mission includes Conservation of indigenous breeds and their development to improve their genetic makeup, enhancing the milk productivity and distribution of disease free high genetic merit bulls for natural service.
• Rashtriya Gokul Mission is being implemented through “State Implementing Agencies (SIA) viz Livestock Development Boards.

Implementation

1. Establishment of Integrated Indigenous cattle centres “Gokul Gram”.
2. Establishment of Breeder’s societies “Gopalan Sangh”.
3. Award to Farmers “Gopal Ratna” and Breeders’ societies “Kamadhenu”.
4. Assistance to institution which are repositories of best germplasm.

Pashudhan Sanjivani

• An animal wellness programme encompassing provision of Animal Health Cards - “Nakul Swasthya Patra”.
• It also issues UID identification of animals in milk and establish a National Database for controlling the spread of animal disease and keep tracking of trade in livestock and its products.

E-Pashudhan Haat Portal

• It is launched under the National Mission on Bovine Productivity for connecting breeders and farmers of indigenous breeds.
• This portal helps farmers to be aware about breed wise information on indigenous breeds.
• Farmers/breeders can sale animals of indigenous breeds through this portal

Charaka Samhita

• Charaka Samhita, the ancient text on Indian Medicine, strongly recommends the use of Desi Cow products for the treatment of various ailments. Let us decide which milk we want…But we should not forget the fact that Hybrid varieties made India the largest milk producing country in the world.

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