Amul aims to double farmers' income in next 4 years through genetically superior dairy herd: Amit Vyas

By Saurabh Trivedi
Anand (Gujarat) [India], December 3 (ANI): Anand Milk Union Limited (AMUL) aims to double the income of farmers in the next four years by producing a dairy herd which is genetically superior and proven, and fit to produce double the quantity of milk at the same cost.
Amit Vyas, Managing Director of Amul Dairy, said that they are improving breeds of the dairy cow and buffaloes with the help of implementing technologies like sorted sex semen, embryo transplant, and digital bands.
"We are focusing on the genetics of our dairy herd and the high breed has proven bulls which will be used for fertilization of embryo, to ensure high breed future generations also," he said.
In the future bovines will be of high genetics and it will help to produce more milk and that will directly improve the quality of life of farmers, he added.
"The average cow produces 7-8 litres of milk daily and it has been improved from four litres. Our basic idea is to bring down the production cost of milk for farmers. Earlier, farmers used to concentrate on increasing numbers of cows to produce more milk but we have asked them not to do so and produce the milk of equivalent to 10 cows from five cows by adopting these high breeds cows and new technologies," Amit Vyas said.
He added that for it they have taken certain initiatives like sorted sex semen and other technologies. They have digitalized the entire Amul and even got digital bands to keep track of animals' health and study their patterns.
Earlier, it was found that bovines give birth to more males as compared to females. And with the technology, more female calves are taking birth and helping farmers to increase their income.
"We are working on homoeopathy medicines and ayurvedic medicines for cows because it is very cost-effective compared to the allopathic treatment of bovines," he said.
On how to increase farmers' income, Vyas said, "Farmers' income can only be increased either through cuts in expenses or by giving them technology at a low cost to double their income to improve their livelihood."
Describing cattle rearing's share in Gujarat's GDP, Vyas said that 20-25 per cent of Gujarat's GDP comes from the Agricultural sector and the dairy sector has a huge contribution.

According to Vyas, the real owners of Amul are its farmers. "In my journey of 77 years, Amul has always given priority to farmers and always ensured they live a good life and how they can get good money for milk production. The vision of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was to create market linkages. There is no owner in Amul, farmers are the actual owners of Amul," he said, adding that around 36 lakh farmers in Gujarat are associated with Amul.
"We have the most economical supply chain in Amul in the world so that we can give more money to farmers. In Amul of every rupee earned, we return around 85 paise to farmers however internationally the rate of return is 33 per cent in the case of farmers," Amit Vyas said.

In 1946, Amul started with 247 litres of milk on its first day. Today Amul handles and processes about 3 crore litres of milk every day.
Dr Preeti Shukla, Public Relations officer, Amul said that they are focusing on increasing milk production through high-breed bovines that are developed through different interventions by Amul.

"We are performing AI (Artificial Insemination) through sex-sorted semen method to produce high-breed bovines to increase milk production. We have performed 2.73 lakh AI using sorted sexed semen technology, with an 87 per cent accuracy rate on the field," she said.
"High breed calf produced through embryo transfer technology, will be further used for breeding," she added. (ANI)