TQM in feeds and feeding will optimise production

TQM in feeds and feeding will optimise production
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan

India is blessed with enormous animal wealth comprising 54%Buffaloes, 16%Cattle, 21%Goats, 5%Sheep and 2%Poultry population of the world. Poultry industry contributes nearly 1.25% to the National GDP. In India most of the land is used for cereal cultivation and a negligible portion (3.92%) is under permanent pastures and grazing lands. Distribution of water is also reduced which calls for a major water policy and development of a large network of canals.

Eventhough India is the largest milk producing country in the world, the productivity of the Indian livestock per animal is relatively low. It is primarily due to poor nourishment; the feeds and fodder produced in the country are poor in quality and grossly insufficient to meet the requirement of livestock population. To cope up with low productivity and higher demand, the farmers have no choice but to maintain large numbers of livestock, which indeed will increase the pressure on already limited, feed supply. Animals cannot compete with man for the scarce resources. Lack of proper regulatory measures to check and improve the quality of cattle feed production worsens the situation. Farmers are not following the scientific feeding and management practices in rearing of Dairy animal. They are unaware of value addition of crop residues. Chronic shortage of feed and fodder with poor nutritive value and low fertility rate lead to low productivity.

Three factors viz., genetic make up, nutrition and management decide the productivity of an animal. Improvement of genetic make up of an animal could only contribute up to 30 per cent to production, while the rest 70 per cent is dependent on nutrition and management.
Ruminants utilize roughage or feeds with high proportion of fibre or crop residues and convert them into meat, milk, farm power and manure. Poor nutritive values of feeds lower the production capacity and fertility potential. If we feed well we can get 20-25% more production from the same livestock.
In India priorities have been to improve the digestibility of crop residues using chemical and microbiological techniques that can be adopted by farmers. Alkali, urea and ammonia treatment of straws has to be used on large scale. Treatment of straws using 4% urea and use of urea-molasses blocks and probiotics have shown better results.
Research findings helped to build a strong feed compounding industry using agro-byproducts and feed formulations. Feed supplements have been progressively used in livestock feeding. About 6 million tones of compound feed are used annually in livestock feeding. Unfortunately, its growth although phenomenal in absolute terms is not able to keep pace with the requirement.
Extension efforts are needed to train the cattle owners and other stakeholders on field applicable technologies for better quality in milk production. It would be desirable to move from fragmented message based extension process to broad-based farm management approach. A database on locally available materials at the panchayat level is needed. It should be made available through milk co-operatives and veterinary institutions.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) should be used for popularising the scientific practices. Internet kiosk developed by Veterinary & Animal Husbandry Extension Department of Rajiv Gandhi College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Pondicherry is an eye opener in this direction.

Efforts should be made to improve both the quality and quantity of feed and fodder. Attempts to develop pasture lands and cultivation of fodder trees and crops through appropriate agro forestry models using common property resources. Farmer is not able to influence the cost of feed or milk. Nine states namely Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Orissa, West Bengal, Andhra Pradhesh, Rajastan, Delhi and Pondicherry have exempted cattle and poultry feed from sale tax. Kerala state still continues to charge 4%sales tax (VAT) and 15%AST. While taking Feed and milk price for the last decade, in the state feed price have shot up 450% while the milk price have increased only by 50%. Antidumping duty on feed supplements will add to the cost of production. Reducing the cost of production by increasing the efficiency of dairy operations is the only choice left to the farmer.
The deficiencies of feeds and fodder call for reduction in livestock numbers and improving the quality of livestock so as to produce the required quantities of milk, egg, meat and fibre with much lesser numbers. It is in this background that any future relationship between crop and animals has to be examined.


The prominent area to meet the challenges of globalization in the feeding sector is only through total quality management (TQM). Issues related to biosecurity measures in the feed industry-safe to animals, humans and to the environment should be looked in to with Good manufacturing practices, good agricultural practices and good animal feeding practices. The quality of feed will define the quality of the product and quality of product will decide the future of the Indian products in market place both in India and abroad. Let us be clear after WTO there is only one market i.e., world market and India is the part of the same.