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Foreign cattle grew 32%, says Census
The Centre’s drive to increase indigenous breeds of cattle seems to have had little impact among cows kept for dairy purposes, according to data from the 20th Livestock Census released on Wednesday. There are 4.85 crore desi (native) milch cows in the country, less than 1% higher than the 4.81 crore population in the last census in 2012. On the other hand, the milch population of exotic and crossbred cattle — including varieties such as Jersey or Holsteins which have much higher milk yields — saw a whopping growth of 32% over the last seven years, growing from 1.9 crore to 2.5 crore animals. Milch cattle are cows kept for the purpose of milk production. Among this category, therefore, foreign breeds now have a population that is more than half the population of desi breeds. The Rashtriya Gokul Mission, launched by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) government in 2014, aimed to promote indigenous desi breeds. However, the total population of such cattle — male and female together, milk-producing or not — actually dropped 6% to 14.2 crore animals, while exotic and crossbred cattle saw an overall growth of almost 27% to 5 crore animals.
Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/no-growth-in-desi-milch-cows/article29721232.ece
