UP to set up breeder farms to boost milk production

Alarmed by slow growth in the production of milk in Uttar Pradesh, which has been stagnant at around 2.5 million litres per day for the past five years despite the increase in the number of cattle and dairies, the Uttar Pradesh government is now planning to launch a 'breeder farm' and 'dairy development' project in all the 820 developmental blocks of the state to develop new and better breeds of cattle to almost double the milk production in the coming decade.

The state's budgetary allocation for livestock and dairy will also be raised almost three times from Rs 550 crore this year to about Rs 1,500 crore in the next year for facilitating the implementation of the dairy development and breeder farm projects.

Talking to Business Standard about the project, Awadhpal Singh Yadav, minister of state (independent charge) for livestock and dairy said UP was one of the most important states in India, holding, in all, about 60 million livestock.

But still, he said, the milk production in the state was not growing as it expected with the rise in livestock. He said though the state still excelled in milk production in the country, it could not hold this position for long without quality milch cattle.

To develop newer strains of cattle with high milk production, under the 'breeder farmer' project in the state, farmers would be selected to run animal breeding farms using high-quality 'Sahiwal' breed of cows, which will be provided to them at 25 per cent subsidy, while the quality livestock produced by them was to be purchased by the state government and distributed among farmers intending to run dairies of up to 200 cattle-strength.

According to the minister, few animal breeder farms will become operational by the next year in the Agra division, alongwith three "embryo transplant laboratories", that are also expected to come up in the division around the same time to facilitate the development of quality livestock.