BHOPAL: While people will greet their near and dear ones with chocolates on Diwali, the experts at Nanaji Deshmukh Veterinary Science University (NDVSU) in Jabalpur have developed chocolate bricks which hold promise of ushering prosperity to poor dairy farmers.
Weighing between 2.5 and 3 kg, these chocolate bricks containing the sweet natural flavour of gur (jaggery) hold the promise of increasing milk and meat yield of ruminant animals, including cows, buffaloes, goats, sheep and pigs, by rendering them adequate doses of nutritional supplements.
According to the NDVSU vice-chancellor Dr S P Tiwari, these bricks have been named Narmada Vitamin Lick and Narmada Min.
They contain necessary minerals, vitamins and proteins, which will boost the milk-meat yield. The bricks will also boost the reproductive capacity of ruminants, ultimately leading to the birth of healthy progenies.
“The chocolate bricks contain all those vitamins, nutrients, protein and minerals in which the desi cattle particularly are deficient. We had surveyed all parts of MP and tracked the minerals-protein-vitamins which were deficient in cattle of poor dairy farmers. We are writing to the department of animal husbandry to launch these chocolates commercially on large scale. The bricks have been developed in conformity with ISO and BIS standards on no profit-no loss basis,” Tiwari informed.
According to the head of NDVSU’s Animal Nutrition Department Dr Sunil Nayak, the bricks are primarily targeted to help the poor cattle farmers.
“Their animals don’t have access to high quality fodder, owing to which they are forced to feed their animals on dry grass and low quality straw-husk, resulting in low quantitative and qualitative yield of milk-meat. The twin nutritional and mineral supplements chocolate bricks have shown during trials on ruminants to increase the milk-meat yield by up to 15% to 20%,” Nayak claimed.