01 Oct Significance of Sheep Milk and its Role in Economic Upliftment of Sheep Farmers
भेड़ के दूध का महत्व और भेड़ किसानों के आर्थिक उत्थान में इसकी भूमिका
Milk has been a part of human nutrition since time immemorial. It is the first food for all mammals after birth. Milk is labeled with age old adage like complete food, super food, nutrient enriched food, first food etc.
About 10,000 years ago, people hardly drink milk of animals, they first domesticated the animals for their meat, but slowly early farmers and pastoralists start taking milk as a food and at present day milk becomes the most abundant food enjoyed worldwide by each and every section of society. Milk for human consumption usually obtained from cow, buffalo, sheep, goat and in certain areas from yak, camel.
The whole world is facing two major challenges these days i.e. Climate change and Malnutrition. Malnutrition encompasses food security and food safety. There is a need of adequate and nutritional food for the mankind.
Modern diet and present-day lifestyle has undergone drastic changes in recent years. This resulted remarkable rise in chronic and deadly diseases. Therefore, consumers are now shifting towards health foods. They are looking for food items having moderate amount of carbohydrate, beneficial fatty acid, ample of minerals and health influential peptides.
Sheep milk addresses all these nutritional facets effectively. It has some important merits that the most popular cow’s milk lacks.
Sheep milk has a good proportion of calorie which is considered beneficial for performing athletes. Sheep milk has twice the fat of cow milk; it also means twice the healthy fats like medium chain fatty acids and linoleic acids. Healthy fats are needed for many physiological processes of body like absorption of nutrients and maintaining body temperature.
Sheep milk is naturally homogenized, that means it is easier to digest. It is higher in iron, calcium, phosphorous, zinc, thiamine, riboflavin and Vitamin C. Higher protein levels in sheep milk made it conducive for fermented milk product formulation and microbial growth. Therefore, now a day it is considered as an excellent source for delivering probiotic to humans.
Bioactive peptides from sheep milk have a medicinal impact that is beyond nutritional impact. It has reported to have ACE inhibitory activity to combat cardiac diseases; antimicrobial and immune-modulatory activity. A current research reported that consumption of sheep milk enhances the bone growth in rats compared to cow milk. Sheep milk is very nutritious diet for weak and debilitated problems.
Climate change is another burning challenge that drastically affected the animal productivity. Sheep is one of the most adaptable animals in the earth. It can survive and perform under scarcity of natural resources (land, water and feed) and by the investment of least capital.
Nature has endowed sheep with various unique morphological features to adapt in various climatic adversities. Morphological variations and uniqueness make sheep adaptable to wide variety of climatic condition i.e. from snowy mountains to arid deserts.
Sheep in India reared mainly for meat and wool; but recently sheep milk is gaining attention of researchers. Ayurveda has described the use of sheep milk in various disorders like tuberculosis, gonorrhea, cystitis, obesity and flatulence. It is also good for rheumatism and hectic cough symptoms.
Migration of people towards cities and continuous erosion of natural resources forces the ignorant and uneducated farmer’s community to shift from their age old practices towards easy income sources, but they have to go for sustainable practices which can bring profit in social, economic and environmental terms.
The dairy sheep industry is yet untouched area in India which need to be exploited both by farmers and researchers. It is an emerging sector, definitely gain high demand in coming future, therefore farmers should look forward in this direction.
It is a profitable venture with very low investments for small, marginal farmers and landless labours. Sheep farming can be the sustainable alternative for the farmers to handle the future day’s climate change and food security challenges.
In future sheep milk has to play a promising role in order to satisfy the consumer’s demand of health food.
Authors
Dr. Arpita Mohapatra
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