India has the highest milch animal population and is also the largest milk producer in the World. Apart from that, milk production in India is done mostly by marginal & landless farmers with complementary feeding aligned with Agriculture. Therefore, Indian dairy farmers are best prepared to meet the growing demand for milk. In fact, the growth of milk production in the country by a CAGR of 4.3% consistently over last five decades in enough proof of their capabilities.
Therefore, ordinary dairy farmers of India are the biggest Entrepreneurs of India. They create and manage their households & related businesses akin to any skilled entrepreneur. Every men & women prepare their Budgets, market their skills / thoughts, manage human resources (family members, house-servants, relatives), control their finances and achieve desired results. They are also born Strategic Planners. For eg. When a child is born in our house, from that instant they start future planning for her.
In fact, all human beings are born Entrepreneurs and they actually don’t require training in this regard. However, education & support assists in refining their Entrepreneurial skills and provides a finishing touch.
Dr. Kurien realized the importance of supporting dairy farmers of the country and not just making them self-sufficient in their business but also to make the nation healthy by consuming more milk. That led to the implementation of Operation Flood Programme in different phases, which ultimately established India as the largest milk producer in the World. This movement not just provided assured market to the dairy farmers or entrepreneurs in remote areas of the country, but also led to many more farmers joining the movement and take up dairying as complimentary to agriculture and therefore also balance the vagaries of agricultural production.
This is no mean feat when compared to the situation of our neighbouring countries, which were part of India before Independence and branched out into separate countries like Sri Lanka or Bangaldesh, which are more dependent on imported milk & milk products and local dairy farmers have no control over their business.
While we have been fortunate enough to have a visionary like Dr. Kurien, who made the country proud and also made farmers owners of their business; here I am going to highlight few areas, where farmers need support to refine their entrepreneural skills and manage their business in a better manner.
Currently dairying is considered a low-esteem job & newer generation is losing interest out of it. The challenge is to make it more remunerative & lucrative by bringing in scale, profitability and pride! We have demonstrated this successfully through state-of-the-art and India’s largest cattle farm, Bhagyalakshmi. Biggest intervention required here are productivity improvement, attaining scale, linkage with market and education.
India has almost 1/3rd of World’s milch animal population however; milk productivity of Indian milch animals is quite lower at around 1300 Litres/animal. Therefore, India is able to produce only 22% of World’s total milk production. Traditionally, India was known for its indigenous breeds of cattle & buffaloes; however the genetic material was lost over last 2 centuries. Hence, Productivity improvement is key to income enhancement of farmers by bringing in newer technologies like sexed semen, genomics, etc.
Another area of importance is Nutrition. Round the year availability of feed & water is necessary for the farmers. Seasonal crops like green forages are available in surplus amount which can be processed to make silage. Required infrastructure can be developed and processed silage bales can be supplied to farmers. However, in order to propagate in a much faster and deeper manner, participation of all industry stakeholders is necessary and they need to be aptly supported in financial terms to bear this burden.
Converting waste into value: Small or large size biogas digesters can be installed either at Individual farmer level or at centralized levels to produce bio-energy. Further, digested slurry from biogas digester can be converted in to liquid and solid organic fertilizers which is far more eco-friendly and cost effective. This would also help organic farming and enhance both quality & quantity of agricultural produce of the farmer.
Similarly, bringing in newer technologies for milking & chilling at farm level like automatic milking machines, Bulk Milk Coolers, etc. and making it affordable to farmers could help them attain scale faster.
Therefore, what is in fact required is educating farmers, developing their skills and providing them technology to upgrade their productivity and hence economics of running the business.
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