In its bid to produce quality cattle and buffalo, the state government today signed an MoU with the NDDB for setting up a semen bank in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district.
"This is a significant milestone to facilitate dairy development in the state," NDDB chairman T Nanda Kumar, who was present at the MoU signing along with Odisha's agriculture, fisheries and animal resource development minister Pradip Maharathy, said.
The state government has already made available 127 acres of land at Kathpal and 7.8 acres of land at Pratappur in Mayurbhanj district free of cost to the NDDB for the purpose.
Maharathy said the semen bank at Kathpal would produce 35 lakh doses of semen of high genetic merit.
Though the Frozen Semen Bank at Cuttack is producing 10 lakh doses of semen annually, the state has been procuring 3.5 lakh semen doses from outside annually to meet its requirement.
By 2020, the annual requirement of semen doses will go up to 25 lakh. The state can meet the short fall of semen requirement from the Regional Semen Station at Kathpal in future, the minister said.
Genetic improvement in cattle and buffaloes by using high quality disease free semen through artificial insemination will enable dairy farmers of the state to enhance milk production thereby providing them better livelihood support, the minister said.
The NDDB will give a price discount of five per cent on their supply of semen doses to the state government, according to the provision of the MoU.
