IDs will help mapping animals parentage, breed & productivity

NEW DELHI, 29 June 2020: In order to track animals parentage, breed & productivity, India will be using new technologies to track over 57 crore animals in the country in the nest 18 months, Animal Husbandry & Dairying secretary Atul Chaturvedi said.

While speaking at a webinar organized by Department of Agriculture Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare, Chaturvedi said that livestock rearing is an ATM machine for farmers and that no product is as fast moving as milk for a retailer.

The two day webinar discussed two topics, the first webinar was on the topic “Landmark Reforms in Indian Agriculture – Investment Opportunities Arising in Agri Enterprises”, while the second webinar dealt with “Ushering a new dawn in Agri Reforms – Strategic Policy Shifts : The Policy Makers’ View”.

The webinars were addressed by Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary, Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Atul Chaturvedi, Secretary, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Dr. Rajeev Ranjan, Secretary, Fisheries and Smt. Pushpa Subrahmanyam, Secretary, Food Processing, Government of India.

Chaturvedi said that Government of India has taken several measures to boost the animal husbandry sector. This includes giving one billion doses of vaccine in a year for FMD which is a bigger drive than in any other country to ensure that cattle are disease-free; animal tagging of five species through Pashu-Aadhar – about 57 crore animals will have unique ID over next 1.5 years on digital platform for mapping their parentage, breed and productivity; improving cattle breeds through artificial insemination, IVF and surrogacy; and aiming to unleash rural entrepreneurs by growing better feed and fodder for animals.

Though, India is the largest milk producer, the per capita consumption of milk in India is still only 394 gms per day as compared to 500-700 gms per day in US & Europe, Chaturvedi said.

The aim is to raise market demand in dairy sector from 158 million metric tonne presently to 290 million mt tonnes over next five years. The share of the organized sector in milk processing is targeted to be raised to 50% from present 30-35%. 

Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, projected an aspirational vision for ‘Atmanirbhar Agriculture’ by transforming farmers into entrepreneurs with higher incomes and better quality of life, making agriculture the “go to” investment opportunity, and making India the Food Basket for the world. 

Several incentives have been announced like Dairy Infra Development Fund in 2018 and Animal Husbandry Infra Development Fund this month.