2021 is a turnaround year for the dairy industry and dairy farmers

By Kuldeep Sharma•Published on January 16, 2021

At the outset, I am pleased to share the 125th edition of the fortnightly newsletter Dairy Pulse to all of you. 2021 is going to be a turnaround year for the dairy sector. Vaccine for eradicating Corona is a reality now. Today is also the first day of Corona Vaccination in India. 2020 has made all of us more attentive and wise towards our health and food intake. The little future created in first fortnight of 2021 is bigger than what could have been thought in the previous year. That reminds me of a famous quote as follows : “It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.” ― John Guare, Landscape of the Body

Protein rich diet is a new normal and dairy consumption is bound to gain out of that. The demand for packaged dairy food has seen a remarkable growth. Various state governments have issued notifications for their 100% staff to resume duties. Schools from class 9th onwards are going to get opened up after almost 10 months. The life is coming back to normal and so would be the much awaited HORECA sector which is still holding back a huge demand for dairy and food products.

Milk processing at its best

Milk processors across the country are running their plants in full throttle and creating stocks for the upcoming summers. The prices of dairy commodities are soaring up due to domestic as well as export demands. The global markets are also showing a positive sentiments . With global price index showing an upward trend since last few weeks. The stocks in EU are at all time low which again is a great opportunity for the dairy cooperatives. It is good as well as for the private sector also. Ice cream sector is looking forward to a bumper sales in coming summer and are creating a demand stir for SMP and butter.

New Year Resolutions

Interestingly the growth of Dahi and Butter milk demand during summer in last few years has also made this vertical of dairy , a great consumer of SMP on the lines of ice creams sector. There has been some shortage of milk which is forcing all players to increase the farmer price for milk in different parts of the country. Amid all these positive activities. I would like to enlist a few resolutions for all the stakeholders for the sustainability of this sector.

Dairy Farmers

a. Please start keeping records of your cost of production as well as animal health b. Also look for opportunity to mobilise community activities. Like Cow shelter, bio gas plant, milking parlours, khoa and ghee processing and subsequently forming farmers club, SHGs , societies and FPOs. c. Please start building your capacities by attending various government run program on skill development in Animal husbandry and clean milk productiond. Star thinking to build market linkages with high quality milk within your village first before going out to nearby blocks and towns. For every one milk producer in the village there are two household which purchase milk from outside.

Dairy Processors

a. Please give good price to the farmers and support them in producing high quality milk.b. Please stop buying inferior milk at lower prices otherwise eradication of bad quality milk would not be possible.c. Please be fair to your consumers by giving very high quality and safe milk at a reasonable price. Else the media will drift all you efforts towards non dairy products with high protein. We must understand that during Covid times the consumer trend has become positive towards Protein foods. And not towards Protein based milk products .

Government

a. Please give a clear mandate to various financial institution to disburse loans to all dairy entrepreneurs without collaterals as stated in the schemes. There has to be fixed period within which the bank must give valid reasons for not providing the loans.b. Please launch dairy linked schemes like Animal husbandry infrastructure fund for the private sector with sufficient provision for this year and ensure that the fund is disbursed for expansion as well as new setups for making value added dairy products as stated under the scheme. All other related schemes for backward and forward linkages must also be opened up for disbursement.

NABARD DEDS to begin asap

c. Please reactivate DEDS schemes of NABARD which are a boon for small farmers and processors. The schemes were stopped after around two months of opening in 2020.d. Please reduce GST on butter and ghee to 5% at least so as to create an easy disposal of excess fat in the market for the benefit of dairy farmers.e. Please bring dairy under income tax regime as in the case of other agriculture processing and also under priority lending so that more capacities could be built up so as to divert milk from unorganised to organised sector.

f. Please keep on listening to the industry also along with farmers so that the policies become more inclusive.g. Please review the policy on scientific management or culling of unproductive or old and stray cattle and make necessary arrangement for their shelters , rearing and disposal. It is becoming a burden of poor farmers and initiatives like sexed semen etc would take minimum 5-7 years before showing significant results.

h. Please advise NABARD to cover dairy FPO also under their FPO funding program , currently it doesn’t seem to be covered under that.i. Please make it mandatory for all running insurance agencies to insure animals. These companies are just not doing it.j. Please make milk powder and ghee as a compulsory part of PDS . And mid day meal for BPL at least to ensure nutrition of wasted and stunted kids population of India.

Food regulator FSSAI

a. Please implement law on use of the dairy terms like milk , butter, cheese, paneer, dahi, etc for bovine milk. b. Please be more stringent on packaging and labelling of analogues and implement the use of dairy logo on milk based products for the benefits of innocent consumers. Hoping for all these resolutions to be part of life in this year and years to come, I wish all of you a grand happy new year 2021. Looking forward to your suggestions on how to make our dairy sector more sustainable and prosperous for all the stakeholders.