Arvind Shukla and Diti Bajpai

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh)

“A desi cow (a stray cow or cattle) gives 2 to 3 litres of milk, 7-10 litres of cow urine and 10 kg of dung a day. It requires only 5-6 kg fodder to eat. If cow dung and urine be used well, or, if the government starts buying cow urine from the farmers at the panchayat level and like DAP-urea, subsidy is given on dung manure, all the cow-related problems can be solved,” said Dr Putan Singh, associated with the Department of Nutrition, Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.

“But then, farmers do not know how to make manure properly. The method that the farmers are currently adopting is not efficient. The farmers were also not given proper training for its good use by the officials,” he added.

In India, farmers are suffering from the stray cows and cattle menace and are busy guarding their fields, day and night. The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has instructed the farmers to build Gaushala (cow shelters) for solving the problem and protection of cows. The state animal husbandry minister too has given an offer to the farmers whereby they shall be given a fixed sum to shelter strays with them.

In view of the problem faced by the farmers, Gaon Connection spent the night of January 1 with the farmers and tried to understand their plight. The farmers who were awake on the fields were angry with the government, and they also complained about them, who had released their cows after milking.

While cows remain a heavily politicized issue in India, Pakistan is ready with a plan to run buses from cow dung (methane) to tackle the problem. 

Can there be some use made of stray cows, bulls and calves in India; can they be made useful to the farmers? To find out, Gaon Connection spoke to many veterinarians and experts. According to them if the government helps and the farmers take meaningful initiatives, income can be generated by making manure and other products from bovine dung which can help solve the problem.

“The farmer is bothered by cows and calves because he feels they are not useful for him. This is because he associates the usefulness of cows only with milk. A cow may yield milk for some time, but produces cow dung and urine up to the last breath. This must be made into compost, vermicompost and bio-enhancers which will lead to additional earnings, higher production and lower cost of cultivation,” Dr Ram Kripal Pathak informed Gaon Connection over the phone. 

According to Dr Pathak, he had started working on making stray cows useful as early as 1997, but did not get much support from the government then. 

Later, when in 2000, Dr Pathak had become the director of the Central Institute of Subtropical Horticulture (Rahman Kheda, Lucknow), he had kickstarted the research on bio-dynamic (cosmic farming). Bio-dynamic farming relies heavily on cosmic energy, principles of astrology and cow.

“Bio-enhancers (a dozen products such as Jiwamrit, Panchgavya, and biopesticide) can be made from cow dung and cow urine, which reduces the consumption of DAP-urea in cultivation. At a conference in Bangkok in 2003, my research paper based on the cow was considered to be the best research paper in the world,” said Dr Pathak. According to him, over the last few years, some farmers in Andhra Pradesh had started working just like Subhash Palekar.

Farmers face the strays menace in several states of the country, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana. According to the animal husbandry department, in Uttar Pradesh alone, there are 11 lakh stray bovine. These are cows and calves which have been abandoned by the farmers as they are of no use to them. In Uttar Pradesh, the problem has become aggravated post the ban on illegal slaughterhouses.

On the usefulness of cow and livestock, Dr Ranvir Singh, Chief Scientist, Department of Animal Genetics, Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly said: “Even with the cow that is not giving any rupee milk, up to Rs 20,000 can also be earned by making organic manure (vermicompost etc.). DAP, urea, chemical pesticides have damaged the health of our soil and nothing is better than cows, earthworms and microorganisms in order to put it right.”

To understand the usefulness of cow or livestock, it is important to know its ins and outs for the farmer.

Have the officials of the Agriculture Department of India and the government failed to convince the farmers? This can be understood in the words of Dr SK Pathak, former director-Horticulture, Uttar Pradesh Diversified Agricultural Support Project (DASP).

“The biggest hurdle before the authorities are posed by their studies. First, they read about cultivation and then do the same in their job until 30-40 years. We have been taught in terms of chemical methods. Lack of field knowledge (ground information) in the authorities on dissemination is a major hurdle. Then, what will they explain to the farmers?” 

In support of his claim, he said: “Even today, 20 per cent of urea in India comes from abroad while for potash and phosphorus, we are totally dependent on foreign countries. Over one hectare of the field, 78 per cent of nitrogen hangs in the air and we keep on buying and stoking it in form of urea. If we begin using cow dung-urine, the atmospheric nitrogen would suffice; urea will not be required at all.”

Dr Ranvir Singh, Chief Scientist, Department of Animal Genetics, IVRI, Bareilly, said: “All stray cows are not of any particular, but of mix breed which is generally of good breeds (Sahiwal, Tharparkar, Gir, etc). This is because the offspring testing scheme for genetic improvement towards improvement of Indian cows, was not properly implemented. Had the attention been paid from the beginning, these cows would have been giving 10 litres of milk today — who would have then left them like buffaloes?”

Genetic offspring testing is the process in which at least 100 cows are artificially inseminated from a bull. The heifer so produced gives more milk and is carried forward sequentially. Its good genes are segregated and inserted into the other, thus a good breed of cow or buffalo is readied.

The farmers are being imparted training at Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Veterinary College and Cow Research Institute, Mathura in Uttar Pradesh on how stray cows and cattle are useful to the farmers. Vice-Chancellor of the college, Prof KML Pathak said: “With the Green Revolution in the country, the White Revolution (Milk Revolution) had started, but there was a mistake. Indigenous cows were given cross breeding with foreign breeds (Jersey, HF) instead of their promotion. These cows did not prove useful in our climate and the indigenous breed kept deteriorating.”

He added: “But that is the past. We have to pay attention now. We have to talk about the value addition of the cow’s product. Turn dung into manure, process milk into cheese and ghee. I have many farmers who sell desi cow’s ghee for up to Rs 4,000 a kg. The first person to teach the lesson of value addition was Lord Krishna. He told the gokul dwellers not to sell milk but go to Mathura and sell butter and buttermilk there. We should follow the same path.”

Talking about cow utility in India, Dr Mahesh Chandra, Joint Director, Extension Education, IVRI-KVK (Bareilly), said: “Cow’s milk, cow dung is all useful. There is a demand for low-fat milk abroad. This milk is useful for heart patients. It is good that now even in India, conscious people are buying cow’s milk and its products at costly prices on the basis of low lat and utility.”

Most of the milk in India goes to cooperative dairies.  Private dairies also run on similar lines and buy milk on the basis of fat. Based upon fat content, the price of buffalo milk is higher, as the same milk is used to make sweets, mawa, etc. Cow’s milk sells at a lower price due to low-fat content.

There is another major reason behind abandoning the cows and calves, which has been constantly overlooked in India. According to the experts, these stray animals are suffering from a severe disease that has reduced their productivity.

As per Dr Shoorvir Singh, former scientist of the Department of Animal Health at Central Goat Research Institute, Mathura and currently, head of biotechnology department at Galgotia University, most of the stray animals are suffering from the intestinal TB.

He explained: “At least 36 per cent of the stray cattle are suffering from intestinal TB. This disease reduces the milk yielding ability of animals. Gradually, they even become infertile after producing only 2-3 offspring after which the farmer abandons them.”

He added: “In 2014, I had developed a vaccine to control this disease, which although was accepted by the government of India, but not propagated on a large scale. This vaccine costing merely Rs 15-20 can make the stray cows useful.”

The sickness of the cattle is not only rendering them useless but is also detrimental to the health of common people. Dr Shoorvir said: “These viruses come to humans through milk powder, ice cream, etc, and can then cause 20-21 diseases like diabetes, colitis and arthritis. It is also very important for human beings to cure this disease.”

“I had read in the English newspaper that it could cost Rs 11, 000 crore to deal with the cow problem in Uttar Pradesh. If only a thousand crore rupees be spent upon my project, the problem of strays in the entire country can be addressed,” he added.

On the utility of the cow, Dr Mahesh Chandra said: “Look, the times are changing. People have become health conscious. Earlier, there was no demand for breeds like Sahiwal and Gir, but now their farmhouses are being created. A lot of cows of Gir breed in Gujarat and Sahiwal breed in Punjab are being sold. But these are only the cows of good breeds; the rest of the breeds will also have to be improved besides working on their by-products.”

In the past few years, as there has been uproar regarding the cow issue, the discussion on the usefulness of the cow has also intensified. The National Gokush Mission and the Ayush Mission in the field of medicine were initiated. People’s awareness about Ayurvedic medicines has increased.

Sushil Awasthi Aditya, residing in Burari, Delhi, has been selling cow’s milk and its products for the past few years. He explained: “I don’t understand why cow is so overlooked in India. There are seven patents upon cow urine registered in the world, including four in the US and three in India. America is making cancer drugs from cow urine while we are chasing cows on the streets. Even if it doesn’t yield milk, the cow is useful.”

When asked how, he cites an example of certain goshalas in Rajasthan and Haryana, where a minimum of 10 litres of cow urine is sold, Nandi cow urine is Rs 15 per litre, while its extracts fetches Rs 150 a litre.

Recently, there was a research undertaken in the United States that has established cow’s benefits beyond our expectations. The US researchers believe that cow may be helpful in making vaccines against HIV. They believe that these cattle constantly generate such antibodies that can not only treat HIV but can also effectively eliminate it. They are of the view that the immunity in cows is far superior and more effective because of their complex and bacteria-containing digestive systems. The US National Institute of Health has considered this information very effective.

Note: The stories were originally published in February 2019.