Jind farm’s novel effort to raise cow productivity

India owns the largest cattle population in the world but with low productivity per animal,the country cannot match the developed nations in terms of per capita yield. This is exactly the fill that Baljit Singh Redhu of Lakshya Food India Ltd has set out to cover,for both cows and buffaloes. Among cows,Redhu is working on what he calls the Hindustani Holstein.

For decades now dairy farmers across India have imported the semen of Holstein-Freisian bulls from multinationals based in the United States and Europe,to increase the yield of the desi cow. The cross-bred cows in India have an impressive yield but are high-maintenance animals too. They need coolers and even air-conditioners in summer and are highly vulnerable to infections in Indian conditions.

To work on his Hindustani Holstein,Redhu’s team purchased the best of cows from all parts of the country— – Ongole from south India,Gir from Gujarat and the other fine breeds. “I am inseminating the various breeds of cows with the semen of Holstein-Freisian bulls. Calves born to these cows will be studied,to see which of them is best suited to our conditions. We will then develop this breeding line and give the semen of the bulls to dairy farmers in villages,to improve the yield of their cows,” he said.

Redhu’s personal favourite,though,is the Murrah buffalo,which he calls the “black gold” of his state. Redhu and his team are creating a pedigree of the finest Murrah dams and sires,to improve the genetic breed of buffaloes by making the finest germ-plasm available to farmers at the village level. Ratification for his work comes from the highest quarters in Haryana. Says Dr Inderjeet Singh,Principal Scientist and Head of the Physiology and Reproduction Division,Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes (CIRB),Hisar,“Redhu is rescuing the Murrah breed for the state. Over the last 50 years,this breed was seeing an exodus from Haryana to other states and also abroad and the elite Murrah cows and bulls were taken away by traders. We were left with a very small number of elite animals. Redhu is doing a commendable job of collecting the precious germ-plasm and developing it further through selective breeding,” highlights Dr Inderjeet. Haryana is the home tract of the Murrah buffalo.

Agrees Dr K S Dangi,Haryana Director General (Animal Husbandry & Dairying),“The work at his breeding farm is of a very high level. He is using their germ-plasm for increasing the genetic potential not only of his own animals but also of those of farmers in the catchment area. It is commendable.”

At the Redhu breeding farm in Jind,the buffaloes are the finest specimens of the breed you can find — and they are all tagged and identified. The yield of each buffalo is recorded regularly through its lactation period,along with the fat content in the yield.

These female buffalos are the prized dams of the farm,and on the other side of the farm are the most majestic,robust buffalo bulls that you can f—nd – the stars of the farm. These have been born after selective breeding of the high-yielding buffaloes with those sires whose mothers had a record yield and high fat content. “The genetic make-up of these bulls is now incomparable. When other low-yielding buffaloes will be inseminated with their semen,the resulting progeny will see a remarkable improvement in yield,” explained Redhu.