India No.1 in milk production: NADS chief

Tirupati: India is number one in milk production and there was 1037 per cent increase in production from 1950-51 to 2017-18 and it produces 18.5 per cent of world milk, said the president of National Academy of Dairy Science (NADS) Prof AK Srivastava.

He addressed the delegates at the two-day national conference on “Challenges and Opportunities in New Generation Dairy Foods in India” and 5th convocation of NADS (India) at S V Veterinary University (SVVU), Tirupati, on Sunday.

Talking on ‘Dynamics of Indian Farming’, he said that dairy development will enhance livelihood, food and nutritional security and welfare of not only this segment, but of whole population. Over 70 million of 147 million Indian households depend on dairy for their livelihood.

The consumption pattern of people has been witnessing changes and the spending on livestock products was increasing from year to year while it was on decreasing trend on cereals and others.

He said that there was constant and sustainable growth in Indian dairy sector despite limited investment from public and private sectors. The strength of the sector lies in the fact that it has highest milk production with high growth rate and low production cost whereas the sector also faces challenges with regard to low milk productivity, poor animal health, shortage of feed and fodder, wide gap between availability and requirement of proven dairy bulls among others.

Prof Srivastava said that half of growth in milk production has come from productivity enhancement and the growth in milk productivity has particularly increased in indigenous local cows.

Milk accounts for 9.2 per cent and 12.5 per cent of protein intake in rural and urban areas respectively and it has been an important source of calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, and various other vitamins.

Mentioning about the future of Indian Dairying, he said that by 2050 milk demand would be of 350-380 million tonnes and choice of diversified or value added dairy products will increase.

Functional dairy foods, genetically designed products, probiotics, prebiotics in dairy foods, herbal dairy foods and other such type of products will form the new generation dairy foods, he underlined.

Addressing the conference, the Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Dr HD Narayana Swamy, said India is producing surplus milk and recently in Karnataka farmers have poured the milk on roads as Karnataka Milk Federation was unable to procure the surplus milk.

Hence, there was a need to search for alternatives by developing by-products and some of the unions were at it producing several milk products but that was not enough and it requires more need based research in this direction.

SVVU Vice-Chancellor Dr Y Haribabu said that 90 per cent of milk production was made by 14 States out of 29 States in the country and the dairy sector has been facing several challenges on which the conference may focus more light to find out solutions.

Secretary of NADS Dr RK Malik, patron of the conference Dr V Padmanabha Reddy, chairman Dr Y Kotilinga Reddy and organising secretary Dr K Nageswar Rao also spoke.