MILK Symposium review: Improving control of mastitis in dairy animals in Nepal

Dairy animals are an important source of income, food, and nutritional security, and improvements in the productivity of dairy animals substantially improve the wellbeing of smallholder dairy farmers. As in other developing countries, dairy animals are key for rural livelihoods in Nepal but often suffer from mastitis—a production disease causing economic losses to farmers, challenges to the dairy processing industry, and possible health hazards to consumers. Studies show that the prevalence of subclinical mastitis in Africa and Asia typically exceeds 50%, threatening animal wellbeing, farmers, dairy processors, and consumers. We conducted a study in Nepal to develop a technology training package to control mastitis in dairy animals. Following identification of knowledge gaps, a technology package consisting of (1) developing good husbandry practices, implementing mastitis detection and control technologies; and (2) training technicians and farmers was implemented. A strategy was subsequently established to provide feedback to farmers in dairy cooperatives on the subclinical mastitis status of their cows. The package was applied in the mid-western region of Nepal. Six months after implementation, we observed a reduction in subclinical mastitis prevalence: from 55% (baseline) to 28% (endline; n = 432) in dairy cows and from 78% to 18% (n = 216) in buffalo. These positive study outcomes strongly suggest that the mastitis technology training package should be scaled across smallholder farmers within and beyond Nepal to control mastitis in dairy animals.