GUWAHATI, April 22 - Pig farming has great employment generation potential and can emerge as a commercially lucrative option for the youths who are trying to be self-employed in the State. With the demand for pigs on the upswing in the North East region, the necessity to increase its supply has become greater than ever before.
To boost pig production in the region, Dr Madan Kumar Tamuli, a scientist at the ICAR-National Research Centre on Pig, Rani near here, has been assiduously working on advanced reproductive technologies. Dr Tamuli, after intensive research, has been successful in introducing the concept of artificial insemination techniques for pigs in the country.
Informing about artificial insemination in pigs, Dr Tamuli said that collection and preservation of semen was possible due to indigenously developed techniques which he had designed long back in 1981 after intensive research.
The technique now helps preserving liquid boar semen for 10 days as is evident from successful farrowing by two sows in Pachim Dairang village. This was possible due to incorporation of one developed herbal compound which replaced the antibiotics and stabilized sperm plasma membrane, as he said. Under his leadership, a group of scientists are also working to simplify the packeting of undiluted semen extender which can be kept as ready to use for in-situ dilution of semen of desired boar at distant localities.
Dr Tamuli has popularised artificial insemination in pigs not only in Assam but also in Meghalaya and Nagaland. With the success in the technique, farmers from Punjab, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu too are using it with preserved liquid semen from the ICAR-NRC on Pig in Rani.
The demand for artificial insemination in pigs has picked up in the State. Now farmers are being trained to breed the sows using the techniques devised by Dr Tamuli. The success story of this technique becomes evident in Pachim Dairang where more than 300 crossbred AI born piglets have been produced since September 2016.
The project is being supervised by Tarun Rabha, Chairman of Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council. So far, more than 37,000 crossbred piglets have been produced since 2010 involving 1750 registered farmers in 240 villages.
Dr Tamuli feels that if the AI technology is introduced in the pig husbandry sector, it will make an economic turnaround for the farmers who are engaged in this sector.
