Amul Adopts Digital Tracking, Monitoring Systems for Artificial Insemination

In an important milestone for the dairy sector for adoption of digital technologies, Amul Dairy has implemented digitization of artificial insemination of cattle. After successful operational initial results at the Kaira District Milk Producers’ Cooperative Union (Amul Dairy), all the 1,200 village-level milk producer societies of Amul Dairy milkshed area have been covered under digitalization. Amul Dairy become India’s first cooperative to adopt digital tracking, monitoring system for artificial insemination processes. The technology provides quick and timely alerts on a mobile phone to cattle owner and the cooperative about artificial insemination (AI) of the animal. The member milk producer needs to register on the Amul call-center for AI for his animal.

A milk society-appointed artificial insemination technician receives a message along with the milk producer and the chain of action begins. The technician visits the animal and once the artificial insemination is completed, all the information is updated on mobile, which sends a message to Amul call-center and the milk producer. The digital system notifies about the pregnancy diagnosis of the animal, after nine months the information regarding the calving i.e. sex of calf is registered in the mobile application along with its date of birth. The system also keeps a track of deworming and vaccination schedules for the newly born.

Amit Vyas, Managing Director of Amul Dairy, said, “There is no need to keep physical record by milk producer as all the information is stored by Amul Dairy through the software system. Digitization of artificial insemination provides instant service to the milk producers as well as information of milch cattle is also stored in the mobile software system and can be analyzed.” Amul is receiving a good response to this digital intervention for a crucial function of milk production.

“At present, registration of more than 4,500 artificial insemination calls done by Amul Call Center daily. Still Amul Dairy is trying to make this method more effective and efficient,” added Vyas. Amul Dairy performs more than 1 million artificial insemination annually in milkshed area. Through digitalization, transparent information as well as its analysis can be used to make accurate decisions and make the animal husbandry business flourish.

Read: Points to Remember While Drying-off Dairy Cows

Source: The article is extracted from The Hindu BusinessLine, August 15, 2020.