65% livestock yet to be characterised: Agri varsity ex-VC

Tribune News Service

Karnal, January 2

A 21-day-long 35th national training programme on “phenomics and genomic evaluation of dairy animals for sustainable production” was inaugurated at National Dairy Research Institute here on Thursday.

The objective of this training is the use of innovation and scientific expertise in big data analysis for animal evaluation and breeding for ensuring sustainable dairy improvement in India.

Dr SL Goswami, former Vice-Chancellor, Banda University of Agriculture and Technology, inaugurated the programme and said that the livestock sector has always played an important role in sustaining agricultural production in our country.

It has not only helped provide food and nutritional security but has also generated income and employment for millions of rural families. “At present in India, there are 184 registered indigenous breeds of farm animal. In the recent past, the majority of the so-far registered livestock breeds have been characterised. A physical and genetic database for these breeds has been developed but the population recognised as registered breeds does not account for even 35 per cent of the total livestock population of the country. There is still a large proportion which has to be characterised using innovative and advanced genetic approaches for evaluation and breeding of high milk producing animals,” he said.

Dr AK Tyagi, Joint Director (Research), said that such training programmes help update the knowledge and skills of participating scientists and teachers from various agricultural and veterinary universities and ICAR institutions. Dr Vikas Vohra, course director, said that the programme was meticulously designed to bring together theoretical, experimental/research and analytic techniques focusing on the improvement of dairy traits and evaluation of dairy animals for sustainable production based on phenomics and genomic techniques.