Milk production registers 6.28% growth during 2014-16

In a major boost to dairy sector, the country has registered a growth of 6.28 per cent during 2014-16, which is higher than last year’s growth rate of about 4 per cent and three times more than the world average growth of 2.2 per cent.

Patting farmers engaged in dairy farming, Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh said that India continues to hold the number one position among milk producing nations of the world since 1998.  

“India has largest bovine population in the world (18.4 per cent share), he said. 

Milk production in India has increased from 22 million tonne in 1970 to 156 million tonne in 2015-16, which shows a growth of 700 per cent during the last 46 years.  

"As a result, the per capita availability of milk in India is 337 gram/day as compared to average world per capita availability of 229 gram/day,” the minister said.

“If wheat and paddy is combined together, even then, in gross value addition (GVA) of Rs 4.92 crore in 2014-15, the contribution of milk is more than 37 per cent, the minister said. 

About 54 per cent of milk produced in the country is surplus, out of which about 38 per cent is handled by the organised sector. The co-operatives and private dairy organisations have equal share in it, while women participation in dairying is about 70 per cent,” Singh said while addressing the inter-session meeting of Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the ministry.

The minister further said that in order to encourage farmers for increasing milk production, it is imperative that milk collection facilities need to be upgraded and farmers be given remunerative price for their produce, which is possible only when an effective management system is in place to link the farmers to the market.