The BAIF family celebrated their 53rd Foundation Day on August 24, 2020 virtually. In a way, the virtual celebration was very memorable for over 200 BAIF field officers from 12 states who came together to make it a special celebration.

“With women having taken the drivers’ seat, the field programmes are in an expansion mode’ stated Mr. Bharat Kakade, Executive Vice President of BAIF in his opening remarks. The programmes are now benefitting more than 50 lakh families in 12 states. Livestock development programme, the flagship programme of BAIF, has reached out to 44 lakh families, through 4700 AI technicians operating through their cattle development centres across the country and enabling our farmers, mostly marginal and small holders to produce milk worth Rs. 15000 crores. Every year about 10 lakh new progeny of high genetic merit are born at the doorsteps of small farmers. The Central Research Station at Urulikanchan has been producing embryos from its state-of-the-art OPU and IBF laboratory and for the first-time streamlining genome sequencing. Construction of climate smart bridges have been the outcome of the climate change adaptation and mitigation programme,’ Mr. Kakade further added.

Mr. Girish Sohani, President, BAIF, dwelled on the survival mechanisms adopted by BAIF to support farmers and to continue their farming activity and revival of the rural economy against the COVID 19 challenge.

Shri. Hrishikesh Mafatlal, Chairman, BAIF, listed the challenges ahead of BAIF to meet the knowledge, skills and values and to help others in society. He also emphasised on the strong value system of the organisation and its unique technologies, which are helpful to encash new opportunities and to minimise the difficulties. Shri. Kishor Chaukar, Trustee, BAI F, spoke about the need for phenomenal changes in the mind set at BAIF as well as in the society. Technology will be the strong pillar for upliftment of the poor. Shri. Sunil Lalbhai. Trustee, BAIF, highligted the need to be self-reliant and develop insights into the emerging needs of the people at the bottom of the pyramid in the birth centenary of the Founder of BAIF. He defined the five learnings for growth of the organisation which will lead to a continuous learning organisation.

Dr. Ashok Pande, Group Vice President, Scientific Research and Livestock Development, appreciated the role of the field team in strengthening the livestock development programme of BAIF through applied research, input production, genomics, animal nutrition and field research for the benefit of the farmers. Viewers were taken to the world of conventional semen laboratory established in 1975 followed by the world of a sophisticated sorted semen laboratory, and goat semen laboratory established in 2018 at Wagholi through screening of short duration videos as part of the virtual celebration.

Dr. Rajashree Joshi, Chief Thematic Programme Executive, BAIF Programmes, highlighted the feminisation of farming practices and the shift in the role of women who are now change makers and climate smart farmers. These were highlighted through short duration videos. Enterprise promotion through silage development at the farms itself, was highlighted by Mr. V.B. Dyasa, Regional Director, Western Region and Programme Director, BAIF. Digitalisation of programmes through epayment, elearning, mobile based telephony and edost was highlighted by Mr. Ramprasad while new programmes such as LMS and Cloud telephony services were presented by Dr. Alok Juneja with inputs from Ms. Nirali Shah and Ms. Pooja Majgankar with the focus being on replicability of digital initiatives. The Regional Directors of all the four Regions highlighted the growth of BAIF’s programmes in the midst of the pandemic, apart from record sale of 1.3 crore doses of conventional frozen semen, 1.5 lakh doses of sorted semen and 260 tons of mineral mixture. Mr. Shrinivas Kulkarni, Group Vice President, Finance, highlighted the social and financial capital aspects of BAIF with technology becoming central to BAIF’s horizon and the support from corporates becoming the trigger for strengthening rural India. Mr. Sujit Gijare, Group Vice President, Human Resources and Administration, emphasised on the human resource capital which ensured stability inspite of overnight sweeping changes brought about by the pandemic.