The Punjab government will set up clusters of desi cows to promote rearing of indigenous breeds like sahiwal and rathi.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today asked the animal husbandry and dairy development departments to take joint initiative in this regard, besides exhorting the horticulture department to establish vegetables and fruits clusters.
Badal took the decision while reviewing recommendations of a task force on agriculture, an official spokesman said. He asked the departments of animal husbandry and dairy development to initiate efforts to boost population of indigenous breeds of cows like sahiwal, rathi, tharparkar and red sindhi.
Badal asked the departments to make concerted efforts for setting up of clusters of desi cows through cooperative milk societies. A pilot project would be launched soon in Fazilka and Abohar and subsequently these clusters would be replicated in other parts of the state depending upon its success.
This move has been initiated to preserve, conserve and promote desi cow breeds, which are capable of producing quality milk and adapt to climatic conditions in the state, the spokesman said.
Moreover, these breeds give more lactation as compared to exotic breeds and their feed conversion ratio was also far more than the exotic kind, he said.
Besides, the quality of desi cow milk was very high as it was more nutritious and fetched higher price to the dairy farmers as several such milk producers were already selling the milk of indigenous cows at a cost of Rs 60-65 per kg and desi ghee at nearly Rs 700-750 per kg.
Pure desi cow milk and ghee would be soon launched in the market by the state's premium milk marketing agency Verka, he said, adding the chief minister desired that dairy farmers be provided premium milk prices to motivate them to adopt these breeds more vigorously to ensure faster growth of dairy sector as an alternative to the conventional farming.
Badal also approved setting up of vegetable and fruit
clusters in seven districts - Amritsar, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana, Sangrur (Malerkotla), Patiala and Fatehgarh Sahib - with an objective to promote the concept of green house cultivation of vegetables to ensure bulk sale of vegetables at competitive prices to the consumers in their vicinity.
"This initiative would also enhance the bargaining power of the vegetable producers to fetch more prices of their produce," the spokesman said.
The Horticulture Department has already inked an MoU with the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) that these vegetable producers would be facilitated to get their produce exported in the international market, besides providing an access to domestic markets.
