Milk Mantra Calf Health Fair for inclusive Dairy Development
The people of Tentulia village of Bangurigaon woke up with a pleasant surprise this morning with the ringing of bells and moo sounds all around them. Milk Mantra, the Odisha based dairy firm founded Srikumar Misra which has already made its mark by becoming one of the fastest growing and highly innovative dairy companies in India, has started a campaign to spread awareness among the rural farmers of Odisha about high quality dairy farming. ‘Uttama Bhachuri mela’ which when translated means ‘High Quality Calf Fair’ was an outcome of Milk Mantra’s efforts over last 2 years in its Artificial Insemination program for cows aimed at improving the cattle stock in Odisha. The initiative as part of its Ethical Milk Sourcing program also promotes good practices in calf rearing, giving farmers access to latest technologies in the field, arranging knowledge camps.
Present at the camp as a guest Dr. Acharya Chandrakant Patjoshi, VAS, Kakatpur stated, “this is very innovative initiative by Milk Mantra to promote benefits of Artificial Insemination among the farmers for their better earning and for over all dairy development. The quality of the calves participated in the fair are really encouraging and I hope, such activities will definitely encourage more farmers to go for the programme”.
The fair/camp was organised with an aim to attract more and more rural farmers, helping them to build a self-sufficient rural ecosystem using local resources and manpower. Around 60 – 70 calves born by artificially insemination participated in the fair. Prizes were distributed based on development of the calf and knowledge of its owner on the breeding programme. Started last year, Milk Mantra’s AI programme has been very successful resulting in more than four hundred healthy calves which represents a 56% success rate.
The basic aim of Milk Mantra in applying AI program is to improve the genetic pool of the cattle in the state and to improve the livelihood of dairy farmers of Odisha. Milk Mantra’s Artificial Insemination programme results in high quality calves as it uses the best quality semen in the country specially procured from Sabarmati Ashram Gaushala, Bidaj of Gujurat.
Milk Mantra has made rapid progress in rural Odisha in building a sustainable sourcing network, and has already been instrumental in developing the dairy sector in Odisha and improving the quality of products. “Our Artificial Insemination programme in many ways is different from other such programmes. It enhances milk production because of improved livestock and we are targeting to have 10,000 happy and health calves born from this program over the next 18 months”, said Mr. Srikumar Misra, Founder, MD& CEO of the company. He also expressed his hope that, this initiative taken by the sourcing team of Milk Mantra led by Mr.Ashit Mahapatra and Dr.Sakthivel Nagarajan will increase the awareness level of the rural farmers on AI Programme which is not only good for the farmers’ economic situation but also useful for the inclusive dairy development in a broader sense.