Department of Veterinary Public Health holds community service in Kandangan Subdistrict Kediri
UNAIR NEWS – Community service is one of the regular activities performed by academics of UNAIR to assist people in dealing with a problem. In these community services, solutions to the problem are proposed and knowledge on the latest innovations is provided as real contribution to the nation .
One of the community services was carried out by a team from Department of Veterinary Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (FKH), Universitas Airlangga in Kandangan Subdistrict, Kediri Regency . The theme for this community service is “Animal-based Food Resources Improvement in Kandangan Subdistrict, Kediri Regency, East Java”.
Almost all residents of Medowo Village in Kandangan Subdistrict, Kediri Regency work as dairy cattle farmers. They have various problems, such as the presence of mastitis cases and the low production of milk.
For this reason, the faculty provided knowledge about the management of dairy cattle, including handling, preventing mastitis, and processing milk properly.
One of the lecturers participating in community service, Adiana Mutamsari Witaningrum said that the most important problem in managing the farm is disease control. She revealed that in several developing countries, mastitis is a major problem that can reduce milk production.
“ Mastitis is an inflammation that occurs in the internal tissue of the udder gland with various causes, degrees of severity, duration of illness and disease consequences. To overcome this, it requires good management in livestock maintenance and handling, “said Adiana .
In addition to maintenance and handling management, continued Adiana, a technological innovation is needed to improve living standard of the breeders by increasing the selling price of milk products and by processing milk into yogurt. Yogurt is milk processing through a fermentation process using lactic acid with high nutritional value and is very good for people with lactose intolerance.
This community service is expected to improve the farmers’ skills in raising livestock and processing milk production with the current technology. Also, providing knowledge on the importance of food safety in their products in order to consumers.
“It is in line with the improvement of breeders’ standard of living by improving the health of the dairy cows being raised and better food safety and increasing innovation in marketing,” explained Adiana.
The enthusiasm of the community in this community service event was great despite being conducted in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The community adhered to health protocols by putting on masks and maintaining a safe distance. It is something new for the breeders. Therefore, they paid close attention to counseling about food safety and handling mastitis as well as demonstrations of making yogurt.
The community also responded to the materials and demonstrations by asking questions in order to deepen the new understanding they had. The breeders who participated in this community service event provided positive feedback on materials and demonstrations with an improving knowledge shown from tests in the beginning and end of the event.
From this community service, the community gets new knowledge and will later be applied to their business. (*)
