HYDERABAD: In a bid to increase the profitability of its dairy farmers, while pushing the State towards self-reliance in milk, Telangana will now use the latest technologies to rear one of the country’s prominent milch cattle breed of Sahiwal cows.
Doctors at Hyderabad’s PV Narasimha Rao Veterinary University are looking to bring in oocyte cells of Sahiwal cows and develop them into a milch cattle breed for the State using embryo transfer and in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) technology. The Central government has already sanctioned Rs 5.83 crore to the PV Narasimha Rao University under the Rashtriya Gokul Mission.
“The oocyte cell of these cows will be brought in from Rajasthan to be matured in a lab. After that, we will fertilise it with good-quality semen purchased from the National Dairy Research Institute in Karnal, Haryana and National Dairy Development Board in Gujarat,” said Dr K Ramachandra Reddy, head of gynaecology at the College of Veterinary Science in Karimnagar. It may be noted that the College of Veterinary Science in Karimnagar falls under the aegis of PV Narasimha Rao University.
Increased milk production
Explaining the effect of this process on milk production, Ramachandra Reddy said that the semen of these bulls is quite potent because their mothers have the capability to produce 4,000 to 5,000 litres of milk during each 300-day lactation cycle. Once the project takes off, they would also be able to replicate similar figures of milk production, thus helping farmers increase their profits, he added. The same embryo transfer and IVF process is also expected to help breed these cows in large numbers.
“In normal breeding, we get one calf per cow in a single year. But through this process we will be able to get anywhere between 15-30 calves per year,” Reddy added.
Improved milk quality
At present, as a milk-deficient State, Telangana gets a majority of its milk from neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Gujarat. This milk is procured from imported cattle varieties, the most popular being the Jersey cow. A veterinary doctor opined that milk from the native Sahiwal breed will be of much higher quality. “The native breed has more protein and fat content which will be beneficial for heart patients.”
The College of Veterinary Science in Karimnagar is looking to set up cowsheds and renovate its laboratories for the same. However, it is going to take another three-to-four months for the project to get going. “Most of the equipment like inverted fluorescence microscope, mixed gas incubators, ultrasound equipment or needles are not available in India and need to be imported,” added Reddy.
India lags behind in use of tech
In the year 1925, India and other countries were each producing 2,500 to 3,000 litres of milk per year. At the time, the foreign countries were breeding exotic varieties of milch cattle like Jersey. Today most of them are producing up to 15,000 litres of milk per year by using latest technologies like embryo transfer and IVF. “But our production has seen only a slight improvement with help from Indian scientists while the number of cattle has reduced,” informs Dr K Ramachandra Reddy, Head of Gynaecology at the College of Veterinary Science in Karimnagar
Equipment unavailable
It is going to take another three to four months for the project to take off. Most of the equipments like the inverted fluorescence microscope, mixed gas incubators are not available in India and need to be imported