NE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY BUREAU
NEW DELHI, NOV 8
NDDB Dairy Services, a subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), on Sunday said it has developed indigenous sex-sorted semen technology to ensure birth of only female calves.
The field trials of the technology were encouraging and the first female calf from the sex-sorted semen dose, produced at Alamadhi Semen Station (Tamil Nadu), was born on a farm near Chennai in October 2020, it said in a statement.
Currently, sex-sorted semen technologies are proprietary to a few multi-national companies, which makes the technology expensive for dairy farmers. The ability to assure the birth of only female calves provides a huge financial advantage to dairy farmers, it added.
“The sex-sorted semen dose produced using indigenous technology is reported to be meeting the industry quality and production benchmarks…This development would lead to large-scale adoption of the technology,” NDDB Chairman Dilip Rath was quoted as saying in the statement.
The project to develop indigenous technology for sex-sorting bovine sperms was taken by NDDB Dairy Services Services a few years ago to significantly bring down the cost of sex-sorted semen doses so that it becomes affordable for dairy farmers in India, he added.
Rath also expressed confidence that the new technology would help in achieving Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of the ”Make in India” programme and the current quest for an ”Aatmanirbhar Bharat”.
NDDB Dairy Services Managing Director Saugata Mitra said, “The technology will help bring down the cost of artificial insemination using sex-sorted semen significantly from the existing Rs 1,000. This will also be a turning point in overcoming the problem of stray cattle in the country”.
He said sex-sorted doses are expected to be commercially available in January 2021 and would go a long way in doubling farmers’ income.
NDDB Dairy Services has partnered with Jiva Sciences, Bengaluru-based research, and development (R&D) organization, for developing indigenous sex-sorting technology.
Some of the key components used in the technology are developed by premier institutes like the Bengaluru-based National Centre for Biological Sciences and Indian Institute of Science as well as the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.
NDDB Dairy Services manages four large semen stations in the country — Sabarmati Ashram Gaushala near Ahmedabad, Animal Breeding Centre near Lucknow, Alamadhi Semen Station near Chennai, and Rahuri Semen Station near Pune.
These semen stations together produce about 35 percent of the total semen produced in the country.
