Source:thehindu.com

The Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (KVASU) and the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), Anand, will join hands to launch innovative projects in the State.

A meeting of senior officials of both the institutions held at Anand in Gujarat recently had decided to launch innovative projects in the areas of productivity enhancement, entrepreneurship, veterinary services, knowledge transfer, call centre, nutritional interventions, and cow comfort, T.P. Sethumadhavan, Director of Entrepreneurship, KVASU, told The Hindu .

‘Milkobike’ is a unique entrepreneurship programme to be launched in the State to minimise the scarcity of people in milking and to promote entrepreneurship in milking. ‘‘It is an innovative venture in which the milking machine will be connected to a motorbike and the person who is operating the machine will be termed as milking technician. The machine can felicitate milking knowledge transfer and milk recording. Initially, as many as 100 units will be launched in the State. Each unit has to cover 20 to 25 house holds a day,’’ Dr. Sethumadhavan said.

Indian Dairy Machinery company, a subsidiary of the NDDB, was in the final stage of launching a cost effective milking machine for Kerala, T. Nandakumar, chairman, NDDB, said.

KVASU
    KVASU

Dairy school

The varsity will establish a dairy school at Pookode with the technical support of NDDB to promote dairy entrepreneurship projects, Dr. Sethumadhavan said. The project is envisaged to provide three-month training programme for dairy farmers in the initial phase.

Apart from this, a south zone foot-and-mouth disease control workshop would be organised in the State to streamline disease control activities.

Precision farming

The KVASU will collaborate with the ration balancing system of NDDB and will integrate with precision farming and nutritional interventions for improving production and productivity.

As part of career development, graduates in the State would get an opportunity for appropriate training/internships from NDDB.

A team from NDDB would visit KVASU campus and identify areas of mutual collaboration, he added.

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