ICAR reports successful OPU-IVF birth of a Badri calf

The Agriculture Ministry reported the birth of a female Badri calf using Ovum Pick-Up and In Vitro Fertilization (OPU-IVF) technology, born on September 11 at the Academic Dairy Farm after a Badri embryo was transferred into a Sahiwal recipient cow. The achievement comes from a collaborative project running since 2023 between ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, and G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, with financial support from the Uttarakhand Biotechnology Council, Haldi. Badri cattle are an indigenous breed of Uttarakhand valued for hardiness in hill terrain, and the breed has been recognised as Uttarakhand's state animal. OPU-IVF lets scientists repeatedly collect egg cells from genetically superior cows without surgery, fertilise them in a laboratory using semen from selected bulls, and produce embryos for transfer into surrogate cows of another breed - letting breeders multiply a small, endangered indigenous population's genetics far faster than natural breeding allows. The project supports both conservation of Badri cattle and genetic improvement of future generations, and is a useful example of animal-biotechnology current affairs alongside India's other indigenous-breed conservation programmes.