The Lead South Australia

News leads from South Australia

Get The Lead in your inbox. Subscribe

Indian dairy farmers to study Australian practices

Education

Innovative dairy farming techniques from South Australia will be taught to trainers from India to help build workforce capability in the world’s biggest dairy market.

Print article Republish Notify me

Sign up to receive notifications about new stories in this category.

Thank you for subscribing to story notifications.

Parag Milk Foods, which owns Bhagyalakshmi Dairy Farm in Manchar – India’s largest private dairy farm – will send four of its dairy trainers to South Australia later this year to receive a mix of classroom and hands-on training from TAFE SA  lecturers.

The trainers will learn about nutrition, housing and calf rearing, among other dairy topics at TAFE SA campuses in Adelaide and in the state’s South East region, which has a long history of producing premium dairy products for Australian and global markets.

TAFE SA is South Australia’s largest vocational education and training provider and one of the largest in Australia.

The Indian dairy trainers will be certified to train dairy farmers at Bhagayalakshmi back in Western India.

TAFE SA Director of Primary Industries, Animal and Laboratory Sciences Ann Beacham said TAFE SA had extensive experience in providing primary production, animal welfare and livestock management training both nationally and internationally.

“TAFE SA’s dairy and agriculture lecturers have many years’ of experience in industry as well as established support networks of industry specialists,” Beacham said.

India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of milk and dairy products.

TAFE SA staff visited Parag Milk Foods and the Bhagyalakshmi Dairy Farm in April 2016 to undertake a scoping visit ahead of the partnership.

In addition, they attended the Global Rajasthan Agricultural Meet in November 2016 – at the invitation of the Rajasthan Government – to gain a greater understanding of the challenges facing the agricultural and dairy sectors of Manchar and Rajasthan, particularly around capacity building.

South Australia and Rajasthan formalized a sister-state relationship based on an exchange of technical capabilities and research in 2015. The agreement provides collaborative opportunities across key sectors such as water management and farming.

Parag Milk Foods Chairman Devendra Shah said the partnership with TAFE SA would help the company improve the productivity of its cows by better educating farmers on best practice for breeding, feeding, animal husbandry and management.

“We are aiming to train all of our associated dairy farmers under this initiative,” Shah said.

“We are also looking at creating a pool of professional farm hands in various aspects of farm management.”

The train-the-trainer partnership between TAFE SA and Parag Milk Foods was facilitated by Austrade.

Australian Trade Commissioner in India Mark Morley said Austrade hoped to replicate similar partnerships between Australia and India, and other Asian markets such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh going forward.

“This partnership demonstrates the possibilities of collaboration between the agricultural industries of both countries as India focuses on climate resilient agriculture production capabilities,” Morley said.

This is a Creative Commons story from The Lead South Australia, a news service providing stories about innovation in South Australia. Please feel free to use the story in any form of media. The story sources are linked in with the copy and all contacts are willing to talk further about the story. Copied to Clipboard

More Education stories

Loading next article