Mitigating carbon emissions through innovations in animal husbandry and dairying

Atul Chaturvedi
The World Environment Day celebrations on the 5th of June, once again shone the spotlight on India’s role in global climate leadership. In fact, India was amongst the most prominent participating nations at the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment in 1972, when the concept of environment day was first conceived. And in 2016, India took a giant leap in advancing her environmental goals, when the Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the country to ratify the Paris Agreement – the moment was loaded with symbolism as it took place on the 2nd of October, the birth date of Mahatma Gandhi. Hence, in keeping with the environmental goals of our nation, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) has undertaken a diverse range of initiatives towards afforestation and supporting innovations that are geared towards mitigating the carbon footprint of industries that come within its purview.
To begin with, DAHD has been working proactively to complement the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s mission on the nationwide sanitation campaign (Swatchhata Hi Sewa) by spearheading efforts towards reducing the usage of single use plastic in milk pouches. To this end, DAHD has issued advisories with recommendations on subsiding one litre milk pouches and discouraging the use of 500 ml pouches by increasing their price. Additionally, it was recommended that customers should be offered a rebate on return of plastic pouches so that it can be later recycled by waste management agencies. The directives issued by DAHD catalyzed many dairy cooperatives to focus on recycling and waste management on a priority basis.
Amongst the prominent dairy companies that led the efforts are Mother Dairy which began the process by inviting bidders for collection, segregation, and recycling of post-consumer Single Layered Plastic for a quantity of 2000 MT in Delhi NCR. In this context, social media campaigns, and innovative strategies such as creating a tall effigy of Ravanawith plastic waste collected from various pockets of the city and recycling it instead of burning it – went a long way towards driving home the message. To enhance the impact of the campaign – door to door plastic collection drives were periodically held in major cities across the country. Likewise, the State Milk Federations submitted action taken reports highlighting their efforts such as subsidizing the price of 1 litre milk by Rs 2.

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