Thanks to Dr. N.R. Bhasin, Hon'ble President
of IDA; Mr. Arun Patil, Chairman IDA(West
Zone); Dr. Sushil Kumar, former Director NDRI
Karnal; Secretary General of the conference
and all my friends. At the end of the
conference I would like to congratulate all of
my friends who have made this conference a
successful event.
When we talk about dairying, there is need to
have an introspection; an evaluation. Five
decades back nobody would have thought milk as
a source of livelihood. Then our milk
production was only 17 million tones now it is
109 million tones as per December 2008 data.
Undoubtedly, in order to achieve this we have
worked hard, we have come to that expectation.
In every Seminar we say that we are the
largest milk producer in the world but the
question is, at what cost? Yes, at the cost of
highest cattle and highest buffalo population
of the world.
We
have 57% of the buffalo population and 16% of
the cattle population of the world in India.
So, if we are increasing the growth rate of
our milk production, as we speculate, in same
ratio, we are increasing the number of
animals. In that sense, we are not going to
make any dent at global level. The need of the
day, as the dairy industry is concerned, is
that we have to reduce the number of
non-producing animals and have to enhance the
number of elite group of animals. For this we
may opt for cross breeding, selective breeding
by using bio-technological methods, embryo
transfer techniques because the biggest
question before us is of fodder. The fodder
available in India is not going to increase at
all with the same pace. We are already
deficient in animal fodder. We have only 6% to
7% of land available for fodder in India and
that will remain same in future as well.
Therefore, we have to think how to control the
number of animals.
Buffalo which is less than half of the cattle
population is giving 55% of milk in India and
in terms of production it is twice productive
than cattle. So we have to emphasise it along
with our elite cows. Here, one blunder we have
done, which is that we have started cross
breeding of our elite indigenous breed like
Sahiwal, Tharparkar, Haryana, etc. We have to
think that cross breeding should be with low
producing animals. In case of indigenous breed
we may go for selective breeding so that we
may maintain our elite group also and increase
their number.
Now, on technological aspect, I want to say
that 33% of total milk, what we are producing
in India, is withheld at the producer level
for home consumption. Only 65% is going for
the marketing. Out of that total milk produced
only 17% is being processed. The 60 to 70% of
milk is consumed as fresh liquid milk. In
Jammu and Kashmir state lot of milk is
forcefully consumed because they do not have
proper system to collect and process the milk.
So we have to think in that direction also. We
can enhance the extent of processing of milk
from existing 17% level. In the country like
Holland and Israel the extent of processing of
milk is 99% and 93% to 95% respectively. So,
if we want to make our presence at global
level, we have to increase the processing of
the milk produced.
The
best aspect of the milk is that milk is a
complete food, good for health. In addition to
it, milk is the best source of preventing and
curing of many diseases. We have to develop a
system of pasteurization and make
micro-bacterial index of pasteurization either
by increasing the time or by increasing the
temperature. No other food like milk can be
the better vehicle, as the probiotic,
prebiotic is concerned, for health benefits.
Further, we have to think that pesticides like
residues should be prevented to come into the
milk for the good health of the people.
So,
as I said in the beginning, we should not be
satisfied that India is the largest milk
producing nation. There is the need of large
developments at its various multiple aspects.
Further in methane gas emission, we can reduce
it, since it is directly concerned to the
number of animals. Hence, the need is to
reduce the methane emission in production of
milk, reduce the number of animals, increase
the productivity of animals, increase the
extent of processing of milk either by
modifying equipment or by modifying
technology.
With the hope that we will be giving all these
issues a serious thought, and would come up
with more relevant thoughts and actions, in
next DIC.
I thank all of you.
