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Kerala turns to Israeli bulls to up milk yield

By Liz Mathew, IANS

New Delhi : Hit by a huge shortfall in milk production, Kerala is all set to import pedigreed Holstein Friesians and Jersey bulls from Israel to crossbreed with its own cows.

The state, which consumes 2.1 million litres of milk daily and buys 10 percent of it from neighbouring states, will import 20 bulls from Israel.

“We will soon place a global tender for these bulls to crossbreed with a selected group of cows in order to increase milk production,” state Animal Husbandry Minister C. Diwakaran told IANS here.

“Kerala will be the first state to import high breed bulls in the last decade,” he said.

The government is planning to keep the bulls in Mattuppetti hill station in Idukki district, where the climate is consistently cool throughout the year.

“We will also import 2,000 doses of their semen and 200 embryos,” said Ani S. Das, managing director of Kerala Livestock Development Board.

According to him, the first phase of breeding is expected to increase milk production by 20 percent in three years. Kerala’s milk consumption is 178 gram per head each day as against the required nutritional consumption of 240 gram.

The project cost is expected to cost Rs.220 million.

On a lighter note, Diwakaran said the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the state has “kept away” its reservations against Israel for the country’s “imperialistic” policies in order to improve the state’s livestock.

“We decided to do away with our reservations with regard to the animals,” he quipped.

The bulls are expected to come in a month or two, he said. In the first phase, around 100,000 cows would be crossbred. However, Kerala’s high-yielding indigenous breeds like Vechur cows would not be part of the programme.

“Crossbreeding on a large scale will hit the domestic breeds, which have been performing well. So the government has parallel schemes to protect and develop them too,” Das said.

“We will select a group of 100,000 cows from different parts of the state for crossbreeding and keep them aside. We do not want to dilute the domestic breeds,” he added.

In a related development, the government, aided by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, is planning to develop a 16-acre model livestock village in Mattupetti, which would be opened for farm tourism.

The state’s proposal to establish a veterinary university in Wayanad’s Pookkodu village has also been approved by the union law ministry and is awaiting the finance ministry’s nod.