India is the world’s largest producer of milk with 21 per cent of global production, followed by the U.S.A., China, Pakistan and Brazil. It has around 70 million small-scale producers, and produces approximately 175 billion litres of milk annually, about twice as much as what the U.S. produces. According to projections by NITI Aayog, India’s milk production should touch 330 million tonnes by 2033.
On a country basis, after India, the US produces the most milk, and China comes in third. This represents a sustained growth in availability of milk and milk products for the growing population in India. Dairying has become an important source of income for millions of rural households engaged in agriculture. This increased consumption of dairy products is also playing a vital role in improving child nutrition and boosting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers across the region, as they are the source of production for the vast amount of milk and dairy products that we consume.
The success of the dairy industry has resulted from the integrated co-operative system of milk collection, transportation, processing and distribution, conversion of the same to milk powder and products, to minimise seasonal impact on suppliers and buyers, retail distribution of milk and milk products, sharing of profits with the farmer, which are ploughed back to enhance productivity and needs to be emulated by other farm produce/producers.
One of the main reasons, India is the highest producer of milk, is that it imports a lot of European cows and cross-breeds them with local varieties. But the most crucial reason is that India has had a successful decades-long programme to source milk from small farmers through cooperatives. One of the prime examples is AMUL.
Credit : Financial Express
Picture Credit : Google
