India wins the first Dairy Asia Sustainability Award

Also at the Dairy Asia meeting, delegates were invited to vote on which they felt deserved to win the very first Dairy Asia Sustainability Award! After hearing presentations from five sustainability programs in the region (narrowed down from a list of some 25 applications), this was a most challenging task as all had achieved impressive results.  In the end there had to be one winner, the Ration Balancing Programme, presented by Dr. Rajesh Sharma, Senior Manager (Animal Nutrition) for the National Dairy Development Board, Anand, Gujarat, India.

The project was based on using a specific rationing program for cattle and buffalo, focused on ‘what feedstuff was available’.  To date some 2.4 million cows have been involved and over 30,000 villages.  Impressively, as a result of a more balanced ration being offered to the animals, GHG emissions have reduced by 12-15% per litre of milk.  The poster for this project can be viewed here. Thank you to Dairy Asia for making this available to us.

In support of Dairy Asia, and in particular this initiative, the DSF has made it possible for the winner to attend our members meeting in October 2018 and share with those present the quantifiable outcomes of this exciting piece of work.  This is exactly what we as a sector need to improve - quantifying the impact of our actions enables us to build the important narrative to share with stakeholders.