I had the privilege of visiting India recently on a World Bank mission. We saw the northern States of Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and spent a week in the stifling hot New Delhi.

Our focus was on the readiness of the states in dealing with the mitigation of climate change.

One of the most fascinating visits was to the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in Karnal, Haryana state.

NDRI is comparable to Teagasc Moorepark and has been ranked as India’s number one research and teaching institution for the last five years.

Like Teagasc, the philosophy of the NDRI is to address its research to the needs of farmers through extension, open days and, especially, demonstration farms.

India is a huge country, with a population of 1.4bn people. It produces 231m tonnes of milk per year, or 24% of global milk production.

The milk is predominantly produced from one to two cow operations. But there are an estimated 67m dairy farmers.

When I asked the NDRI scientists to see their milking parlour, I was told that they didn’t have any as all of the animals were hand milked. Over 50% of output is produced from cows, with buffaloes producing 45%. Cattle numbers amount to 193m and buffaloes are of the order of 107m.

Milk yield

Average milk yield for crossbred cows is very low at only 8l/day, ranging from 7l for the bottom 25%, to over 10l for the top 10%. For the indigenous breeds, the average yields are about 40% lower.

Only about 20% of the milk produced is estimated to be processed in any organised way and 0.38% exported. They’re not going to be significant exporters any day soon, as their population is projected to grow to 1.7bn by 2050.

When it comes to climate change, the focus is on ensuring that their agricultural sector is resilient. In other words, their thinking is primarily about adaptation. I heard very little mention of mitigation.

Make no mistake, ruminant animal and rice production are heavy emitters of greenhouse gases.

In a country with such a large population, and with so many people facing poverty on a daily basis, it’s understandable that India has an emphasis on food security.

Dairy buffaloes eating straw on a farm.

Their biggest concern arises from the effects of heat stress, but extreme flooding events have caused havoc of late. You won’t be long in India before the evidence for climate change becomes all too apparent.

In New Delhi, the temperature exceeded 50°C for several days. But even in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, the temperature has been over 30°C in recent years, relative to the norm of 27-28°C.

NDRI reckons that heat stress can reduce yields by 16% to 20%. It’s understandable, therefore, that combating it is prioritised.

When it comes to management, attention has been centred on nutrition and housing infrastructure

They’re focusing on a combination of breeding and management approaches. They’ve discovered a heat-specific gene expression for cows.

In March of last year, they successfully calved their first clone. This work will inform the breeding of climate resilient animals.

When it comes to management, attention has been centred on nutrition and housing infrastructure.

In one really interesting experiment, they’ve found that a 50% diet of a green fodder, that’s been recently introduced to northern India (Ramie), combined with 5% mango seed kernel, reduced enteric fermentation by 36%.

They’ve also examined the optimal housing for cows under hot humid conditions and they’ve constructed wind tunnels for animals to conduct these experiments.

But they’ve also concentrated on how best to disseminate their management recommendations.

Weekly basis

On a weekly basis, NDRI provides advice via mobile app, text and WhatsApp, on how farmers in Haryana state can cope with their calculated temperature humidity index. And they’ve analysed the relative impact of the three digital media in influencing farmer behaviour.

The mobile app was found to be the most effective and resulted in milk yield increasing by 0.51 kg/day.

NDRI has also produced maps of climatic risk areas and hotspots that warrant targeted research and dissemination activity. They plan to develop tailor-made packages of resilience models for these areas and hotspots.

In another innovative programme, NDRI has generated a specially designed set of resilience measures to enhance the adaptive capacity of female dairy farmers in the face of climate change.

While thankfully we don’t face the same scale of climate impact on our dairy sector, I think there are lessons that we can learn from their focus on building resilience.

Longer, wetter winters and dryer summers are affecting farming conditions.

These need to be understood and the most vulnerable areas identified and targeted solutions proffered throughout the season.

The most effective communication channels need to be developed and existing ones enhanced.

PastureBase Ireland in the Republic of Ireland and AgriSearch’s GrassCheck in Northern Ireland already provide a platform for doing this.