Pune: Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF) inaugurated its new Semen Sorting Laboratory for cattle at its Uruli Kanchan campus on Saturday. The Semen Sorting Laboratory has been built in association with Sexing Technologies- ST Genetics, the USA with help from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“The lab will focus on sorting semen of cattle. The commencement of work in the laboratory began in September and since then we have tested the semen of almost 8 breeds of cattle and have achieved 90 per cent success and are planning to reach 92-93 per cent shortly,” said BAIF Project Manager Dr Sachin Joshi.
Chairman of BAIF Hrishikesh Mafatlal along with CEO of Sexing Technologies, USA, Dr Juan Moreno; Director, Sexing Technologies, Eduardo Fernandez; Dr Gregg BeVier, from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; VP Marketing of Sexing Technologies, Prakash Kalrickal, senior programme officer, agriculture development/livestock, Dr Donald Nkrumah and others from BAIF and Sexing Technologies were present at the inauguration.
Talking about the technology, Dr Juan Moreno, CEO of Sexing Technologies said, “The kind of machinery used in the laboratory is state of the art. In a bull sperm there are 50 per cent male cells and 50 per cent female cells, our computerised machines scan the cells and separates the male and female cells. The dead cells are discarded along with 93 per cent of male cells. This artificially created semen, upon insemination into the cow gives birth to a heifer which will benefit the farmer by producing milk.”
“I feel really proud to make a difference in the lives of farmers. Using sex-sorted semen, the farmers get more female cattle which in turn produce more milk and his income is benefitted. We are happy to be associated with BAIF and it is the beginning of a long-term partnership and look forward to it,” added Moreno. Use of sex-sorted semen technology started around 15 years ago in the US and today, about 25 per cent of the cows are born through this technology.
