Ludhiana, June 16
With an aim to give a fillip to dairy farming in the state, the Society for Advancement of Research in Animal Sciences (SARAS), Punjab Agricultural University, in association with the Punjab Dairy Farmers’ Association honoured top nine progressive farmers of Punjab during a function held at Wheat Auditorium here today.
The top award winner was Mr Randhir Singh Rode of the Rode Dairy Farm in Baga Purana subdivision of Moga district. He was honoured for using best available techniques in his farm, maintaining good health of all his 72 cows and producing on an average 500 litres of milk daily. President of the Punjab Dairy Farmers’ Association, Mr Rode also recently went to Denmark on a two-month training in producing clean, chemical-free milk.
The farmer said he ventured into the field in 1976. He said he initially had four cows and since then had 72 cows in his mechanised, well-equipped farm.
The second prize went to Mr Daljit Singh of the Satluj Dairy Farm in Sadarpura village of Jagraon subdivision. He was awarded for producing the best feed for his 138 farm animals of which 46 were producing milk. His farm had also been selected for experimentation by PAU under the National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP).
Mr Daljit said he started his farm in 1997, when the business was quite profitable. But due to little help from government departments, he said profits in this field were going down each year. He was selling milk to Nestle as it fetched him more profit than Milkfed, he added.
Hailing from Kauria village in Sangrur, Col M.S. Sekhon was awarded the third prize for maintaining computerised records of his farm. The date of birth of each animal, along with its parentage, vaccination schedule and its yield had been maintained on computers.
The youngest award winner at the function was Mr Yudhvir Singh of the Mohan Dairy Farm in Kotha Sania village of Kotkapura, who started his enterprise at the age of 18 years. In eight years, he was now the proud owner of a 20-acre farm with 138 animals. His farm had with fountains and fans to keep animals in cool conditions.
Mr Harminder Singh Sunny of Patiala received a consolation award for following clean milk practices. With his 30 milch cattle, he sold about 600 litres of milk daily. Mr Tej Singh of Moga also won a consolation award for record keeping. Mr Sukhraj Singh won a prize for experimenting in producing sheds of different shapes and sizes.
Mr Gurmel Singh of the Haibowal Dairy Complex, too, received a consolation prize for producing the best, high-yielding Murrah breed of buffalo. Mr Sardara Singh, also from the same complex, won a consolation prize for the best Nill Ravi buffalo. He owned as many as 460 animals and sold milk about 2400 litres per day in the city.
Dr O.S. Parmar, Head of the Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics and Chairman of the organising committee, said the objective of the competition was to assess the impact of various dairy development programmes undertaken by different agencies for improvement of productivity and profitability of the dairy enterprise. He said dairy farmers were evaluated in totality in respect of all aspects of dairy farming like status of dairy animals, type of dairy sheds, system of record keeping, feeding practices, fodder production and conservation, health and vaccination, clean milk production, mechanisation of dairy farming operations, marketing of milk and milk products by the dairy farmers.
Mr Jagmohan Singh Kang, Minister for Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, Punjab, was the chief guest. Mr D.S. Bains, Secretary, Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, was be the guest of honour. Mr Sidhu, Director of Animal Husbandry, Dr K.S. Aulakh, vice-chancellor of PAU, and Dr J.S. Kolar, Director Extension Education, were also present on the occasion.
