Bull semen imports are a welcome dairy experiment

livemint.com:

It’s no mean feat that India is the largest producer of milk in the world, especially when one considers the limited supply we had right after independence. Since the white revolution in subsequent decades, which saw rural dairy farms link up to form cooperative networks, our milk production has come a long way. In 2022-23, the country produced 230.6 million tonnes of it.

But with all of it getting consumed within India, our dairy farming sector must scale up to meet rising domestic demand and serve overseas markets. It is not a surprise then that the government is aiming for 330 million tonnes of annual milk output by 2033-34. That would be a jump of more than two-fifths in about a decade.

Enlarging our bovine count is an option, as we are nowhere close to a methane crisis of the kind America has acquired from its outsized cattle farms, but it would certainly be more efficient if we could increase the milk producing capacity of our existing livestock. In this context, the National Dairy Development Board’s (NDDB) latest initiative is noteworthy. This government-run overseer of cooperative farming has imported 40,000 doses of Gir bull semen from Brazil for domestic insemination to raise milk volumes.

The Gir breed is claimed to be capable of producing as much as 40 litres of milk every day per animal. While this may be true of a few top specimen, even its reported average of 20-22 litres daily would exceed what Indian cattle farmers are accustomed to: an average estimated at 8 litres. Given this productivity gap, having the genes of Brazilian animals introduced in the local bovine population could boost milk supply without the need of cattle farm expansion.