NDDB to Set up Modern Semen Station in Odisha The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) on Wednesday announced plans to set up a state-of-the-art semen station in Odisha which would give a boost to efforts for increasing milk productivity and promotion of dairy sector in the State. The State Government has provided 135 acres of land at Kathpur and Pratappur near Baripada for establishment of the facility. An MoU is set to be signed between the Government and the Dairy board here on Thursday. The station will use the most advanced technologies and high genetic merit bulls to produce the highest quality disease-free semen of cattle and buffalo. It will procure donor bulls of different breeds as Jersey, HF, Jersey crossbreed, HF crossbreed along with indigenous breeds as red Sindhi, Hariana, Sahiwal, Gir, Jharparkar from different genetic improvement programmes in the country. It will start off with 140 donor bulls and has a target to produce 45 lakh semen doses per year. Production is expected to start from 2016. The facility will give a huge push to meeting the demands as well as increasing penetration of artificial insemination (AI) in the State. Odisha has only one semen bank at Cuttack which produces around 8-9 lakh doses a year which fails to meet the requirement. It is also planned to be expanded to increase semen production to the tune of 18 lakh doses a year. NDDBs National Dairy Plan Phase-I (NDP-I) focuses on improving productivity through scientific breeding and nutrition as well as strengthening dairy cooperatives and streamlining supply and procurement systems to ensure farmers get the right price. NDP-I is under implementation in three districts of Cuttack, Sambalpur and Puri and proposed to be expanded to Ganjam, Gajapati, Kalahandi, Balangir and Bhawanipatna soon, Chairman NDDB, T Nanda Kumar, who is on a two-day visit to the State said. Odishas milk production stood at around 1.86 million tonne in 2013-14 accounting for only around 1.4 per cent of national milk production. Per capita availability is around 112 grams per day against the National level of 290 grams. Only around 20 per cent of the inhabited villages are covered by cooperatives against national average of 23 per cent. Therefore, there is considerable scope to increase coverage and provide greater market access to small milk producers in the State. The milch animal productivity, which presently is around 2.48 kg per day has to be brought to the all India level of 4.30 kg per day, Managing Director NDDB, Dillip Rath said. NDP-I has focused on ration balancing, fodder demonstration and creation of village-based milk procurement system covering 44,000 animals in 600 villages in the three districts. Around 6000 additional milk producers would be enrolled in cooperatives of which at least 50 per cent would be women, he stated. Dairy Farming ■ The State Government has provided 135 acres of land at Kathpur and Pratappur near Baripada for establishment of the facility ■ The station will use the most advanced technologies and high genetic merit bulls to produce the highest quality disease-free semen of cattle and buffalo
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 06:51:26 +0000
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