The milk sold by farmers got higher prices due to the advent of Mother Dairy, said Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. He was speaking at a conference on ‘Vidarbha’s Dairy Development’ at the 13th Agrovision Agricultural Exhibition being held at PDKV Grounds in Dabha, Nagpur.
He said that the entry of Mother Dairy created competition in the market and many companies and private agencies, which earlier used to offer low prices for farmers’ milk, had to pay competitive rates. Apart from this, Mother Dairy makes payments on the same day so the money gets deposited to farmers’ account immediately, he added.
Dr Ashish Paturkar of MAFSU, Chancellor of Punjabrao Agricultural University, Akola; Dr Sharad Gadakh, General Manager of NDDB; V Sridhar, Deputy General Manager of Bank of Baroda; Ghanshyam Gupta, Jitendra Solankhi of NDDB and Dr Ravindra Thackeray, Project Director of Vidarbha and Marathwada Dairy Development were among the prominent persons present on the occasion.
Gadkari further appealed to the farmers to take benefit of various schemes and activities of Mother Dairy, MAFSU, Dairy Board and increase the milk production to a level of 20 liters per cow in next 5 years.
He also said high yielding calves can be created by using embryo transfer method. “These high yielding generation of cows would be helpful in eradicating poverty of farmers,” Gadkari observed. In addition, he said that the animals can be better nourished by using Mother Dairy recommended animal feed.
On the occasion, Gadkari launched Mother Dairy’s Samriddhi feed supplement and door step artificial semen service.
NDDB General Manager V Sridhar spoke about the activities jointly implemented by NDDB and Mother Dairy.
NDDB Manager Dr Sachin Shankhpal gave useful information to the farmers on health and milk production management of milch animals. Dr Ravindra Thackeray predicted that farmers will use 8,000
metric tonnes of authentic animal feed in the coming year and said that awareness is being raised about it.
Dr Wasim Hunnare spoke on traditional treatment methods for milch animals. He said that all information is available on e-Gopala app. Sudhir Dive and Renuka Deshkar conducted the proceedings of the function.
