Prakash Kumar Sahoo
The world will celebrate the 21st anniversary of World Milk Day on June 1, 2021. ‘World Milk Day’ was first launched in 2001 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations to recognise the important contributions of the dairy sector in boosting sustainability, economic development, livelihoods and increase awareness regarding nutritional value of milk and milk products around the world. Since 2014, India has been celebrating its National Milk Day on November 26 every year in memory of Dr. Verghese Kurien, the Father of the White Revolution in the country. To highlight the importance of milk in human life, the significance of World Milk Day is yet to be realised in its true sense by all stakeholders concerned across the world.
The livestock sector in India contributes about 4.11% to India’s GDP and 25.6 % towards total agriculture GDP, whereas the dairy sector claims majority of share (67%) in value of outputs within livestock (National Accounts Statistics, 2019). From the global point of view, India is world’s largest producer and consumer of milk. According to FAO, India contributes 22 per cent to global milk production and produced 187.7 million tons of output in 2018, followed by USA.
Even though India has achieved self-sufficient milk production, only ten states in India produce 81% of milk. Only nine states have performed per capita availability of milk at par with the national level. The data shows that India’s milk production is concentrated in a few states because of their robust dairy cooperative networks and a higher remunerative price of milk received by the farmers in their respective states.
As Odisha is concerned, it contributes 1.23% of milk production during the period 2018-19, producing 2.3 million tons. In Odisha, milk is produced by small and marginal farmers whose landholdings, less than 2 hectares and with 3 or 4 animals. In terms of per capita availability of milk in 2018-19, Punjab was the leader among states with 1,181 grams of milk available per person per day, followed by Haryana (1,087 grams), Rajasthan (870 grams), and Gujarat (626 grams). Milk production in Odisha mainly consists of cow and buffalo milk. Cow milk dominates the total milk production, accounting for the majority of the entire production. Though the Odisha dairy market grew at a CAGR of 11% during 2014-2019, the per capita milk availability in Odisha is deficient at 143 gm/day, much below the national average of 394gm/day.
In this context, the dairy cooperative plays an influential role in strengthening the dairy sector, which boosts milk production. Odisha has 5,579 dairy co-operative societies with 290,785 members, whereas Gujarat has 18,595 dairy co-operative societies with 3,455,886 members. During the 1980s, the co-operatives were not so organised to procure milk and milk products in the state. The Odisha State Cooperative Milk Producers Federation (OMFED) started functioning in1985 during the phase II of the “Operation Flood” programme.
Milk procurement from the farmers is also low in the state compared to other states. While the procurement of milk was 94,000 kg/day in 2000-01, the procurement in 2018-19 was around 5.01 lakh kg/day, whereas the daily procurement in Gujarat is 18.22 lakh kg – the highest procurement in the country. Despite having a significant livestock base of milch animals and being the largest milk producer globally, India lacks cold storages in many milk shed areas, resulting in wastage of milk and milk products. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has also adversely affected the dairy sector. Milk procurement has been affected severely during this pandemic as there is a huge decline in demand for milk.
To overcome this situation, the government needs to devise a suitable dairy development policy for enhancing milk production and procurement in the remaining potential districts and states. Recently, India announced `15,000 crore funds for setting up Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund, which will promote private investments in dairy processing and value addition and cattle feed infrastructure. Though the state-owned milk federation (OMFED) is working progressively to achieve the procurement level, milk unions in Odisha have to be strengthened like ‘Anand Pattern’ in Gujarat, which will help in increasing production and higher procurement. This move will help get more private investments in the dairy sector, suffice the OMFED efforts in pegging up the milk procurement, and generating employment opportunities. Now, the time has come to adopt advanced scientific techniques and rational dairy policies to augment milk production in the state and the country.
The writer is a Lecturer in Economics at Vikram Deb (Autonomous) College, Jeypore, Odisha. Views are personal.