Can India really become milk pail of the world ?

By Kuldeep Sharma•Published on March 20, 2023

49 th Dairy industry conference organised by Indian Dairy Association concluded on 18th March at Ahmedabad on a very high note. The event was inaugurated by Minister of Dairying Sh Parshottam Rupala ji on 16th of March. The valedictory session was graced by Sh Amit Shah ji Minister of Cooperation and Sh Bhupinder Patel ji Chief Minister Gujarat.

These dignitaries threw two challenges in front of the thousands of dairy professionals and farmers who attended the conference and the expo. Parshottam Rupala ji asked for increasing milk productivity in India from 2-3 litres per day to 10 litres per day. Amit Shah ji on the other hand asked to capture a huge market share in global dairy exports.

I thought of considering these two points as driving forces for Indian dairying in the next decade. The two critical questions to be answered for building scenarios may be as follows :

Will the productivity improvement of Indian cattle bring sustainability in the Indian dairy sector ?
What will be the effect of dairy exports from India on demand for dairy products in India ?

Now let us examine these two questions one by one .

Productivity Improvement

Milk output is a function of genetics and feed input. It is a good idea to improve milk productivity from around 2000 Litres to 3500 Litres per lactation. Considering the current feed efficiency of 60% one cow requires around 3 Tons of Dry matter per annum. It will change to around 4.5 MT of DM at 75% feed efficiency. We know very well that there is a great deficit of feed and fodder in the country .

Milk productivity can not be increased through feed and fodder alone. We need to be disruptive in improving the breed through disruptive technologies like IVF and Embryo transfer. However, AI coverage of bovines in the country is about 30 per cent ranging from 71 per cent to even less than 1 per cent for different states. The success rate of these AI is around 35% in India as against 60% in the developed dairy countries. This means that for the next level technology of IVF and ET , the coverage might be negligible only.

Dairy Exports of India

India exported around 300 Million dollar worth of dairy products in 2021 with a 0.32 % global dairy trade share under 0401-0406 category. The total global trade in dairy was around 92 billion dollars during the same period. The export share of various dairy products at global level under HSN code 04 was as follows.

Suruchi Research with data from Trademap.

It is evident that cheese and curd is the largest globally traded commodity followed by Milk powders at 26% share. Milk and Butter fat are at 11% each. Whey and Buttermilk categories are again at equal share of 6% each.

Butterfat and SMP were the major products which India exports with a share of 50% and 25% respectively. The share of other products were very less with Cheese and Paneer at third position with around 10% share. Indian dairy products are more consumed by the ethnic population. They also succumbed to cost inefficiencies while competing with European companies in dairy commodities due to their high scale.

India is following the principle of “mass production is production by masses”, therefore we do not open up at a bilateral level for the dairy sector while signing FTAs with the developed world. We are very stringent in our NTBs on the quality of dairy products so we have to face similar stringent norms at the customs of those countries.

Issues at hand

I am afraid that taking two commitments of high productivity and export growth further may end up reaching the following situations.

Future wheeling of two critical driving forces- Suruchi Research

It is just an illustration on how we can realise the dreams of policy makers who shared it during the conference. We must start thinking about these action points first with proper allocation of budgets before developing any picture of projected data scenarios for Indian dairying.

The dream might be of a Utopian situation but I am certain that it is possible to achieve. I request all stakeholders to come together and start planning on these two agendas only in order to make Indian dairying sustainable and also to make the milk pail of the world .

I request all of you to take this discussion further and share your insights on how to make it happen.

Source : Fortnightly dairy blog by Kuldeep Sharma Chief editor Dairynews7x7.com

Productivity Improvement

We know very well that there is a great deficit of feed and fodder in the country .