Despite being the world’s largest producer of milk, India will face a milk shortage if production does not increase to the level required in the summer.
According to the department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, due to increase in the international and domestic prices there will be less availability of milk and milk products in the summer season which may effect the quality of milk and milk products and it may lead to adulteration.
The total milk production in the country has touched 156 million tonnes till date while per capita milk availability is about 337 gm/day. It is estimated that there is a shortage of 4-5 million tones of milk in the country. The shortage of milk is attributed to growing population, shortage of quality fodder, changing food preferences and increasing demand of milk and milk products.
Officials say India may have to import milk in four years, if it cannot increase fodder supply for its 299 million cattle, as rising pressure on land reduces pastures nationwide. “The demand for milk and milk products will grow to at least 210 million tonnes by 2021-22, a rise of 36 percent over five years,” officials say. “To meet this demand, production must grow by 5.5 percent per annum,” the officials added.
In 2014-15 and 2015-16 milk production grew at 6.2 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. To boost milk yield, India would need to generate 1,764 million tonnes of fodder by 2020. But existing resources can only manage about 900 million tonnes of fodder-a shortage of 49 percent. This demand and supply gap has pushed up milk prices by an average of 16 percent per annum. The availability and quality of fodder has a direct bearing on the quantity and quality of milk productivity, the data show.
The latest data released by Department of Animal Husbandry shows that Uttar Pradesh which is largest producer of milk in the country, produce 23.33 million tones followed by Rajasthan (13.93 million tones), Andhra Pradesh (12.762 million tones), Gujarat (10.315 million tons), Punjab (9.714 million tones), Madhya Pradesh (8.838 million tones), Haryana (7.04 million tones), Tamil Nadu (7.04 million tones) and Bihar (6.845 million tones).
In the last two years, the milk production grew at 6.5 per cent annually as against 4.5 per cent per annum in the previous 10 years, which is almost double as compared to the growth in milk production in the world. Taking a note that shortage of milk supply may lead to adulteration, the Ministry of Agriculture has written to chief secretaries of States and Union Territories to keep on adulteration and synthetic milk in the markets that is harmful to human health.