Meghalaya has proposed to set up cattle ranches in the state as a private initiative to boost milk and meat production and to provide rich sources of proteins to the people.
The Directorate of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary will invest on cattle ranches on the basis of 60:25:15(loan: government contribution: own contribution) in different locations across the state, mostly along the international border.
The minimum amount of land required for setting up a ranch for 500 cattle is 500 acres. The ranches will give an opportunity to the people with unutilized land to get good money by cattle rearing and thereby contributing to the development of the state.
An important objective of the setting up of cattle ranches is to encourage and increase stakeholder investment participation in the whole value chain so that the production process of dairy products would be effective.
For setting up the ranches, sustainable productions models will be followed and farmers will be allowed to play an important role in the process of dairy production so that an efficient process with the use of technology,quality control and financial discipline be adopted thereby leading to high returns.
The directorate believes that Meghalaya can also become an important dairy hub like Gujarat where the dairy industry is quite effective and the place of the White Revolution, reports The Telegraph.
The per capita availability of milk per person per day in the state is only 80 gm and the national average is above 250 gm.So with the setting up of cattle ranches, the directorate hopes to improve the dairy sector of the state and meet the demands of local people.