Estimates of the Economic Cost Caused by Five Major Reproductive Problems in Dairy Animals in Assam and Bihar, India

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Large ruminant dairy animals (i.e., cattle and buffalo) suffer from several reproductive problems (such as abortion) that reduce ther ability to produce milk and offspring, resulting in huge economic costs to farmers; however, there are few studies in India that estimate such costs. Therefore, an attempt was made to assess the economic cost of five major reproductive problems in two of the poorest Indian states—Assam and Bihar. We estimated the cost by interviewing 534 randomly selected dairy farming households in both the states. Based on this, we found that 32.9% of dairy animals (milking, not-milking and heifer) in Assam and 43.1% dairy animals in Bihar suffered from one or more reproductive problems. The most common reproductive problem was failing to conceive after breeding (23.2% of surveyed dairy animals) followed by retained placenta (6.1%), abortion (4.9%), purulent vaginal discharge (2.9%) and stillbirths (1.0%). It was estimated that the selected reproductive problems caused an annual economic cost of Indian Rupees (INR), 3963.1 million (USD 59.0 million) in Assam, and INR 30,500.0 million (USD 453.9 million) in Bihar. The study concludes that adequate awareness, capacity building, adoption of good reproductive health management practices, proper farm record keeping and improved access to quality veterinary services are essential to address reproductive problems and reduce the cost caused by these reproductive problems. ABSTRACT: Reproductive problems in dairy animals reduce fertility, prevent conception, create problems in the delivery of healthy calves, lead to postpartum complications, increase inter-calving periods, reduce milk yield, and lower overall lifetime productivity. This study aimed at understanding the incidence of reproductive problems and the cost caused by these. The study covered 954 dairy animals in Bihar and 1348 dairy animals in Assam that were selected using a multi-stage random sampling method. The costs were calculated as the sum of income losses and expenditures incurred. The major cost incurred resulted from extended calving intervals (46.1% of the total cost), followed by loss through salvage selling (38.1%), expenditure for treatment of repeat breeders (5.9%), loss of milk production (5.3%) and expenditure for extra inseminations (2.0%). About one fifth of the selected reproductive problems were left untreated. The estimated cost of reproductive problems was Indian Rupees (INR) 2424.9 (USD 36.1) per dairy animal per year (of the total dairy animal population) which represented approximately 4.1% of the mean value loss of dairy animals (INR 58,966/USD 877) per year. Reproductive problems were significantly (p < 0.001) higher among improved (exotic breed or cross-bred) dairy animals than indigenous (native breed or nondescript indigenous) dairy animals. The study suggests that with the increase of improved dairy animal population, the loss may further increase. The study concludes that any economic estimation of reproduction problems based on aetiology without confirmatory diagnoses could be highly misleading because of the complex nature of the problems.