Strengthening the Cooperative Business

During the year, NDDB continued its efforts to strengthen cooperatives through institution building, increased participation of women, farmers’ induction, and enhanced milk procurement and marketing.

NDDB seeks to strengthen the dairy cooperatives movement by significantly increasing women dairy farmers’ participation in dairy cooperatives. The activities include communication, education, extension and training of members, thrift, health and income generation. NDDB has initiated pilot women’s thrift and credit cooperative projects in Shajapur (MP) and Tirupati (AP). By November 2001, 107 Women Thrift Cooperatives (WTC) with a membership of 8628 had already been formed.

NDDB conducts Farmers’ Induction Programme throughout the year to expose farmers from all over the country to the latest developments in the dairy farming. They are taken on field visits to village socities, milk processing and cattle feed plants. The class room session also includes discussion on clean milk production and good animal management practices. Till December 2001, 2430 farmers including 578 women participated in 26 Farmers’ Induction Programme.

The focus of the project is on the emergence of a well-informed constituency of members, responsive managing committee, members of the village dairy cooperative societies, a pro-active Board of Directors of unions, committed cooperators as well as competent and responsible staff, aimed at building diary cooperatives into self-reliant and thriving business enterprises which will be responsive to economic and social expectations of members. In order to sensitise the Board of Directors regarding business of the Union and evolve long term goals, NDDB has been conducting Business Orientation Programmes. Towards the end of the programme the Board drafts value and mission statements and prepares long terms goals which is discussed later and finalised with professional managers at an interface workshop. Till December 2001, 12 orientation programmes were organised wherein 164 members participated. NDDB also undertook training programmes for the staff union to enable them to facilitate village level institution building programmes.

Enhancing Productivity

In order to ensure maximum economic returns to milk producers and sustained increase in milk production, NDDB has adopted a scientific and integrated approach towards breeding, feeding, health care and husbandry practices.

Animal Breeding : For genetic improvement of the country’s cattle and buffaloes, NDDB has developed appropriate selection programmes – the Dairy Herd Improvement Programme Actions (DIPA) and the Open Nucleus Breeding System (ONBS) integrated with artificial insemination. DNA fingerprinting and karyotyping are being undertaken to identify and select superior healthy milch animals. NDDB has supported the Milk Unions to establish semen production, liquid nitrogen delivery and artificial inseminatiion (AI) facilities. During 2001-02, approximately 22,000 DCSs provided AI services and carried out approximately 5.5 million inseminations (Provisional). Approximately, 7 million frozen semen doses were produced by 11 cooperative semen stations.

Animal Nutrition : Bypass protein and fats have been developed under a collaborative research programme with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). A pilot plant for making bypass protein has been set up in Anand. Another pilot mineral mixture plant has been developed and installed. During the year, 47 cattle feed plants with a total installed capacity of 6255 MT per day produced on an average 4565 MT of cattle feed with an overall capacity utilisation of 73 per cent. In addition, 11 Urea Molasses plants produced and sold 2 lakh blocks. Under NDDB’s Fodder Seed Production Programmes implemented through dairy cooperatives and NGOs, a total of 45,000 quintals of good quality seeds were sold to milk producers through cooperatives.

Animal Health : NDDB’s current animal health research focuses on standardisation of molecular methods for disease diagnosis and development of recombinant vaccines against Brucellosis, Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), Haemorrhagic Septicaemia (HS), Calf Diarrhoea and Jonhe’s Disease. The serological screening of breeding animals for Blue Tongue (BT) and Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR) by NDDB is underway on organised farms. Attempts are being made to develop a recombinant vaccine against ticks infesting dairy cattle. Under the diagnostic services programme, 2168 specimens of various types received from clinically sick animals were studied during the year. In addition to regular prophylactic vaccination of animals, NDDB also assisted cooperatives in mastitis and brucellosis control.

Managing Quality

Quality initiatives taken up in the cooperative dairy sector under the Perspective Plan,2010 of NDDB include a massive awareness programme on Clean Milk Production (CMP) covering one lakh village DCSs across the country. Through a range of informational and educational inputs, including a book titled “Doodh ki Kahani Gai ki Zabani’ published in Hindi and in 10 other stage languages, producers are made aware of hygienic milking and milk handling practices. So far, 44 dairy plants and 7 cattle feed plants have already obtained ISO/HACCP accreditation. NDDB has designed and developed user friendly kits for testing raw milk at the village level DCS, the reception dock of a dairy plant and also at the consumers’ doorstep.

Building a National Information Network

NDDB continues its endeavor to provide real time information to dairy cooperatives by setting up information systems at various levels using modern technology. The scope of the data encompasses demography, agriculture and land use, livestock population, export and import of dairy commodities, milk production and productivity of animals.

Information support system : Under information support system of EC programme, NDDB is establishing a network with the milk unions, federations and marketing dairies through implementation of Internet based Dairy Information System (IDIS). More than 75% of the Unions are entering data regularly through IDIS.

An information system involving Geographical Information System (GIS) software and software for animal enumeration and milk production estimation, society information, veterinary health care and artificial insemination service has been developed and tested and the activities are operational in 33 unions – 12 each in the western region and southern region, 5 in the northern region and 4 in the eastern region. The GIS provides decision support and helps in strategic planning in areas of milk procurement, veterinary health, epidemiology and other operational matters. All Gujarat and Karnataka Unions are already using GIS for procurement management and for other applications.

NDDB has become the sole founder of the cooperative services from the SAARC region from 21st November,2001. The cooperative services are managed by the Dot Coop Limited Liability Company (DCLLC), a fully owned subsidiary of National Co-operative Business Alliance, US (NCBA) in partnership with the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA).