Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies for Sustainable Dairy Production Under Changing Climate Scenario

Abstract

In India, dairy sector plays vital role in the national economy and in the socio-economic development of the country by providing gainful employment and income generating avenues for small, marginal farmers and landless labourers. Apart from the existing challenges like increased occurrence of emerging and re-emerging animal diseases, vulnerability to exotic diseases, perennial shortage of feed and fodder resources and an urgent need to increase production as well as productivity to meet ever increasing demand for animal products, etc. now livestock sector is confronting a very serious challenge of ‘climate change’. Changes in climate which encompasses decrease in minimum temperature, increase in maximum temperature, erratic rainfall, higher incidence of extreme weather events, etc. may negatively affect water availability, pasture and fodder crop quality and quantity, animal immune response, epidemiological pattern of vector-borne diseases, productive and reproductive efficiency, which in long term would affect the livelihood and food security of millions of farmers’ dependent of livestock. Adaptation strategies like selection of animals for thermal tolerance, alteration in herd composition, microclimate modification, access to cool clean drinking water, changing feeding frequency and time of feeding and changing ingredients, e.g. addition of dietary fat to increase energy density, etc. could be adopted to maintain dry matter intake during stressful environmental conditions. The important strategies for mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from dairy animals include diet manipulation, direct inhibitors, feed additives, propionate enhancers, methane oxidisers, probiotics, defaunation, hormones, vaccination for reduced activity of rumen protozoa, etc. Improving waste management by adopting waste-to-energy concepts like biogas production, electricity generation, etc. would reduce GHGs such as CH₄, N₂O significantly. The existing adaptation and mitigation strategies have the potential to significantly reduce the likely impact of climate change on dairy production system. Therefore, it is high time that concerted efforts are made to enhance the resilience of the farms and animals through dissemination of adaptation and mitigation strategies in a sustained manner so that, the production and productivity levels of dairy animals are not only maintained but also improved even in challenging environmental conditions.