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Nourishing the Nation:
Livestock Development
Initial efforts for dairy development were made by Dr. Manibhai Desai before he founded BAIF by maintaining a herd of champion Gir cows at the Nisargopachar Ashram at Urulikanchan which was awarded the Gopal Ratna for five consecutive years.
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For the rural family, the improved dairy animals were like modern day ‘charkha’ providing gainful self-employment and remunerative livelihood to millions in their own environs.
The cryogenic system to the last mile was launched for artificial insemination at the farmer’s doorstep.
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Livestock development was the first step in fulfilling the mission of gainful self-employment and sustainable livelihood for the rural population as it could positively impact millions of farming households in the country.
The strategy for meeting this goal involved producing a superior progeny by breeding local non-descript cattle with semen from home-born bulls of high genetic merit and then back-crossing the crossbreds with the Indian dairy cattle breeds.
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The crossbred cow represented the modern ‘charkha’ for rural self-employment.
Availability of sexed semen for poor farmers has recently been introduced at the field level.
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Work has now been initiated on development of indigenous breeds and application of genomics.
Goats for the small holder – the poor woman’s ATM.
The Goat Development Programme is being implemented in 8 states, enabling more than 9000 women goat keepers to adopt good husbandry practices.
Ethnoveterinary Medicine Project(http://baifuser.ltd.ind.in/)