The Centre’s initiatives have led to an exponential growth in the dairy sector. For it to be able to tap its potential — generating employment and increasing farmers’ income besides empowering women — the productivity gap needs to be addressed
Amid all the noise arising from the recent farmers’ agitations, the remarkable growth story of the dairy sector seems to have escaped notice. Milk production has been growing at over six per cent per annum during the last five years, thus contributing to enhancing farmers’ income, reducing rural poverty, empowering women and strengthening farm resilience to climate change. It also ensures national food and nutritional security besides generating employment. With a total milk production of 176.3 MT during 2017-18 and a growing milk production base, it is natural to ask whether the six per cent plus growth is sustainable.
The growth of the dairy sector is primarily propelled by demand-led factors on account of increasing population, urbanisation, disposal incomes and shift in dietary habits of an increasingly health conscious population. It also depends on the supply response from millions of small milk producers, aided by various public-funded programmes that are aimed at enhancing milch animal productivity and providing market access to a large number of milk producers through village-level producers-owned institutions (PoIs). The focus in the next phase of growth should be on enhancing efficiencies, introducing innovative technologies and opening new opportunities for milk producers.
Recognising the role of animal husbandry and dairying in contributing towards the growth of farmers’ income and employment, the Government constituted a separate Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying. This was a landmark move. The Central Government’s announcement of a Rs 13,343 crore scheme to control and eradicate Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Brucellosis through mass vaccination as also the creation of a Dairy Infrastructure Development Fund with a corpus of Rs 8,004 crore last year, is a testimony to the priority it accords to the dairy sector.
Relevance of PoIs
As small animal holders constitute the bed rock of Indian milk production system, it is important that they get a remunerative price for a highly perishable commodity like milk. This is possible by organising village-level PoIs so as to pool the milk procured from producing members in a fair and transparent manner. PoIs help farmers get remunerative price for the milk and provide them assured market access. As per estimates by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), there are more than one lakh villages which remain to be covered by PoIs. NDDB and its associate organisations have already initiated programmes in recent years to set up village-level institutions in less dairy developed regions. A time-bound action plan to provide market access to milk producers in less dairy developed regions, including aspirational districts, needs to be implemented in the next phase of dairy development.
As it is, it is the women members, who take care of dairying. Their direct representation in PoIs — both in governance and management — will not only strengthen gender participation but also encourage socio-economic change. The sterling performance of a large number of all-women village-level institutions as well as large dairy cooperatives/milk producer firms is testimony to the fact that women participation can promote sustained growth of the dairy sector.
Productivity gaps
Animal breeding: Milch animal productivity in India is very low (total cows — 4.5 kg/day, indigenous cows — 2.9 kg/day and buffaloes 5.5 kg/day) as compared to other countries. This is particularly true for indigenous breeds, on whose development the present Government is focussing on in the interest of inclusive and climate-resilient growth of dairying. A majority of these animals are with small and marginal farmers, particularly in backward areas. Therefore, a multi-pronged approach to fast-track genetic progress of this class of animals should be taken up. This includes greater artificial insemination coverage; production and propagation of better genetics and germplasm; introduction of Advanced Reproductive Technologies such as in-vitro embryo production and transfer; genomic selection of animals; indigenisation of sex semen sorting technologies; R&D efforts on cloning and synthetic gamete production. This will help in leapfrogging genetic progress of our indigenous breeds like Gir, Sahiwal and Tharparkar. The Government has already initiated these programmes under the National Dairy Plan and is now implementing the Rashtriya Gokul Mission.
Animal nutrition: Feed and fodder constitute about 75 per cent of the cost of milk production. Will natural resource constraints come in the way of our continuing march in milk production growth? The good news is that in our country, mostly crop residues and agricultural by-products are used as animal feed. There remains a huge untapped potential of unutilised biomass, which along with the adoption of better technologies in securing, enriching, densifying and conserving the existing biomass, can be a source of nutritious feed to our milch animals. However, the Government should bring in a comprehensive “animal feed regulation” to ensure availability of quality and cost-effective feed.
Animal’s health is farmers’ wealth: It is time that a cost-effective and efficacious preventive and curative animal healthcare system is put in place to control and eradicate animal diseases through mass vaccination and promotion of Ethno Veterinary Medicines, based on ayurvedic principles to treat animal diseases. The Union Cabinet’s allocation of Rs 13,343 crore to fully control FMD and Brucellosis in the next five years is welcome. These diseases have direct impact in declining milk production, adversely impact animal and human health and our dairy exports. Implementation of the scheme will require coordinated efforts.
Human resources and data-driven dairying: All interventions to expand market access and introduce productivity enhancement measures are not achievable unless PoIs and veterinary institutions have trained and qualified human resources. If our dairy sector has to grow, focus needs to be on training existing manpower and capacity-building of PoIs on a sustained basis. Use of ICT tools and systems, both in creation of a national animal data base to ensure animal identification and traceability and to ensure transparent milk procurement systems, will make our small holder dairy system viable, efficient, transparent, accountable and sustainable.
Public funding: As the dairy and animal husbandry sector has the potential to play a significant role in driving growth, employment and incomes in rural India, adequate budgetary allocation is needed. Providing interest subventions to PoIs to strengthen and expand their processing infrastructure and announcement of a major animal disease control scheme by the Union Cabinet are welcome measures. Sourcing ODA assistance from bilateral and multilateral funding agencies such as JICA and World Bank for our dairy sector can be explored by the Government to sustain the growth momentum.
(The writer is Chairman, National Dairy Development Board)