West Assam Milk Producers’ Cooperative Union Ltd. (WAMUL), made a foray to augment to drive towards increasing milk productivity and reducing production costs for dairy farmers with the help of which of the following initiatives?

The correct answer is Cattle Feed supplements. West Assam Milk Producers’ Cooperative Union Ltd. (WAMUL), popularly known as Purabi Dairy made a foray into Cattle Feed supplements to augment its drive towards increasing milk productivity and reducing production cost for dairy farmers. The range of Cattle Feed supplements shall reinforce WAMUL’s efforts in improving the milk productivity of cattle and thus reduction in the cost of production. Productivity improvement is identified as one of the key areas of interventions required for dairy development in Assam. As a part of the planned product line-up, WAMUL has commenced production of Area Specific Mineral Mixture & By-Pass Protein Meal at its Cattle Feed Plant situated at Changsari, Kamrup district. The plants were inaugurated by the Assam Minister of Cooperation in the presence of Executive Director, NDDB &Chairman, WAMUL Management Committee. Additional Information WAMUL has been promoting and propagating scientific feeding practices like Ration Balancing Programme (RBP) and breed up-gradation through the Artificial Insemination (AI) program. These projects are supported & funded by the Government of Assam through Assam Project for Agri-Business & Rural Transformation (APART) WAMUL being the End Implementing Agency (EIA) for the Formal Dairy Sector. Providing Area specific mineral mixture for productivity enhancement is a vital element in the feed regime, especially for the productive & reproductive health of the cattle. Bharat Chandra Kalita, a former member of the WAMUL Management Committee and a highly experienced dairy farmer, shared his experience & expressed his happiness on behalf of all the farmers on the occasion as their own cooperative is once again starting manufacturing of cattle feed & feed supplements, which is highly essential & critical in supporting dairying. While discussing the product with the technical team of WAMUL it came to light that in cattle feed a major and one of the most nutritive components is protein. An innovative process to increase the bioavailability of such protein has been adopted to produce by-pass protein. Presently, WAMUL launched Bypass Protein as a feed supplement for the cattle. In days to come, the compound cattle feed to be manufactured in the plant will use such bypass protein as an ingredient to produce Bypass Protein-based Compound Cattle Feed. At present, WAMUL is managed by the National Dairy Development Board and holds market leadership in Assam in pasteurised & fortified pouch milk segment with sales of over 67,000 litres of milk per day and over 5000 litres worth of milk products. With World Bank funding, under the APART project of Govt. of Assam, WAMUL has been able to deploy a team of veterinary doctors to ensure productivity enhancement of cattle through AI service network. With the launch of its range of cattle feed & feed supplements, WAMUL will be able to ensure the supply of nutritious & healthy feed supplements to the farmers. These measures will in turn result in better quality & quantity milk production and higher returns to the local dairy farmers a step towards the “Doubling Farmers’ Income” aim set by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.