Milk output in Bihar has decreased due to a lack of green fodder for milch cattle. Cattle farmers have suffered greatly as a result of this year’s monsoon, which brought heavy rain and flooding. According to Sanjay Kumar, deputy director of the Bihar Dairy Development Directorate, several farmers were forced to sell their milch animals. Due to a lack of green fodder, hundreds of farmers in the flood-affected districts of Supaul, Katihar, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Vaishali, Begusarai, and Samastipur were forced to sell their livestock.
“We lost green fodder, which was a staple diet for milch cattle,” said Darbhanga cattle farmer Mahesh Mandal. Farmers re-cultivated it after the water receded, but it will take a month for it to be ready for harvest, according to him.
Farmers used available dry fodder and green fodder in their stores to feed cattle during early floods following heavy rains in mid-June, he said. Everything was washed away or destroyed by floods. Another dairy farmer, Suraj Yadav of Supaul, said the circumstances forced them to sell their cattle in despair or buy high-cost dry feed from the market.
Mandal and Yadav both stated that rising dry fodder prices affected them. Until early this year, dry feed cost Rs 500-600 per quintal, but has since risen to Rs 900-1,000 per quintal.