A Five-day training programme on ‘Value addition of milk was 'organized by the College of Dairy Science and Technology (CODST), Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana.
Greeting the trainees including women farmer who underwent training in the course, the chief guest, Dr. S K Uppal, Dean, CODST emphasized that dairy processing with value addition could help to enhance the economic well-being of the large number of farmers in Punjab. He congratulated the faculty for excellent training to the farmers wherein theory and practical demonstrations were taken up by them with a great interest to persuade the farmers to start their own dairy processing business. He motivated the participants to maintain contacts with the University experts and try to excel in the dairy processing and value addition through hard work and innovation. He motivated ensured the cooperation from the trained faculty of the college in the future, as well.
During the training Director of Extension Education, Dr. H. K. Verma, interacted with the farmers and said that they should come up as budding entrepreneurs and be as job provider instead of job seekers. He revealed that university conducts different types of trainings round the year on livestock, piggery, goatry, poultry, fisheries and value addition of products. Farmers should come forward to get the benefit.
Course coordinators of training Dr. Gopika Talwar, Dr. Rekha Chawla and Dr. Sunil Kumar, provided an overview of the activities carried out for the participants during the training course. They informed that the five-day training programme was technically so designed that farmers could harness the beneficial aspects of training on manufacture of seven milk products viz. Milk Cake, Paneer, Whey Drink, Flavoured Dahi, Lassi, Mozzarella Cheese and Sterilized Flavoured Milk. To give them hands on exposure for dairy product manufacture, demonstrations were given in Experimental Dairy Plant of the college. The training also covered the microbiological, chemical and economical aspects for proper handling of milk and milk products. A progressive dairy farmer, Pushpinder Singh from Fazilka, shared his experiences about the technical sessions of the training and mentioned that, they all in a group had excellent practical experience of manufacturing the milk products and other technical know-how from learned faculty of CODST. Valedictory session was concluded with distribution of certificates to the participants.
