Giving a major push to improving the breed of cows, boosting milk production and tackling the problem of stray cattle, the government has introduced ‘sex-selection’ semen at subsidised rates for dairy farmers in Punjab, as it will ensure birth of female cattle only.
Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa said the state government had taken a historic step to facilitate things for the dairy farmers by improving the breed of cattle and increasing the milk production. He said improving the quality of livestock would provide Rs10 crore annual relief to the dairy farmers.
He said the government had reduced semen rates by four times to promote dairy farming in the state. As per new rates, the price for sexed semen, imported by the Animal Husbandry Department, had been reduced from Rs1,000 to Rs300 for each vial.
He said the fee of imported Holstein Friesian (HF) or Jersey semen had been reduced from Rs200 to Rs50 and fee for semen of imported bulls and bulls born through embryo transfer technology (ETT) with imported embryos had been reduced from Rs150 to Rs35. The rates of conventional semen (non-ETT, non-imported or unsexed) had been reduced from Rs75 to Rs25.
Apart from this, the state’s Animal Husbandry Department has launched a campaign to provide free breeding to 20,000 livestock of 300 villages in every district of the state under ‘National Artificial Insemination Programme’ of the Union Government.
This sex-selection semen containing genes with the ‘X’ chromosome, as opposed to the ‘Y’ chromosome, which is present in males but not females was imported until 2018 at a cost of Rs1,500 per vial. However, during the past one year, the Union Government has opened many insemination centres to develop the sex-selection semen indigenously.
The introduction of this process will also help encourage the use of semen of indigenous breeds such as Gir, Sahiwal, Kankrej etc, said Dr Ram Chand, former Head of Dairy Extension in the National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal.
He said, “The semen meant to produce a specific gender of cattle is derived through the sorted semen technique, which requires specimen to be preserved in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius. It can be stored for around 10 years.”
He said the government was also conducting experiments in various institutes with in-vitro fertilisation of cattle with genital deformities.
This news has not been edited by Apni Kheti staff but has been published by various news feeds
Source: Tribune India