Shri Parshottam Rupala, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare inaugurated a National Workshop on Improving Feed Production Efficiency & Quality Control Aspects of Cattle Feed Plants organised by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) at the T K Patel Auditorium, NDDB, Anand on 28 February 2017. Shri Dilip Patel, Member of Parliament, Shri Dilip Rath, Chairman, NDDB and Dr HPS Makkar, FAO, Rome graced the occasion. Around 200 cattle feed plant professionals from all over the country participated.
In his inaugural address, Shri Rupala said that agriculture is the back bone of rural economy in the country and dairying plays an important role in it. Even though India is the largest milk producer in the world, there is ample scope to improve per animal productivity.
Shri Rupala said that with the increase in demand for milk, productivity of dairy animals should increase. It is time that we refocus our efforts in providing good quality feed and mineral mixture and put up concerted efforts in promoting different variants of compound cattle feed for different categories of animals. For ensuring quality in feed production, we need to have qualified trained manpower, efficient plants and machinery and technical expertise to produce right type of feeds. He thanked NDDB for organising this workshop to address all these issues with participation from dairy cooperatives all over the country.
The Union Minister also launched NDDB’s Cattle Feed Knowledge Portal, an interactive knowledge platform on various aspects of compound cattle feed production. The portal will also have information on least cost formula for feeds, suppliers of feed ingredients, raw material specifications as well as a discussion forum to share information.
Shri Dilip Patel released a booklet titled Understanding Your Bovine. The booklet creates awareness on easily discernible signs of bovines so that corrective measures can be taken for management, feeding, health, hygiene practices, levels of discomfort etc, thereby avoid losses which at times could be disastrous. NDDB
