Did you know that households selling milk to dairy cooperative societies (DCS) got better returns from cross-breeds and buffalo than the local breeds? The DCS households also got better returns than those belonging to non-dairy cooperative society (NDCS) segment.

While DCS households in Assam got the highest net returns of ₹52.8 per animal per day in the case of cross-breeds, those in Chhattisgarh netted the highest returns of ₹40.3 per animal per day in the case of buffalo. Gujarat got the highest net returns on local cows. The DCS households got net returns of ₹28.4 per animal per day in Gujarat.

The returns were not encouraging for DCS households in West Bengal. They got negative returns of ₹(-)67 per animal per day on local cows.

In a reply in Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Parshottam Rupala, Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, said the Agro-Economic Research (AER) Division under the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation and Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES) had conducted a study ‘Assessment of the Status of Dairying and Potential to Improve Socio-Economic Status of the Milk Producers and Convergence of all Central and State Schemes at District level in India’ through the AER centre in Gujarat for the agriculture years of 2015-16 and 2016-17 in Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Stating that the study has come out with the findings on the cost of production of milk and net returns realised by the sample households belonging to DCS and NDCS, he said: “The findings mention that the net returns realised by the DCS households were higher than NDCS household for all groups and in all species. Further, there are huge variations across the States in terms of expenditure incurred on various items and inputs of milk production.”

The cost of milk production was highest for local cows and cross-breeds in Rajasthan for DCS households. It stood at ₹206.3 per animal per day for local cows, and ₹207.9 per animal per day for cross-breeds. Buffalo milk production cost was the highest in Odisha at ₹225.9 per animal per day.

Farmers belonging to NDCS segment in Chhattisgarh got good net returns on milk from local cows (₹18.2 per animal per day), cross breeds (₹72 per animal per day) and buffalo (₹73.5 per animal per day) when compared to other States.

Procurement up

Though the milk procurement during the lockdown period went up in the country, the average milk procurement price paid to the dairy farmers did not come down.

This fact has been revealed in another answer by the Minister in Lok Sabha. Replying to another query, Rupala said the average milk procurement from dairy farmers, including procurement price paid by cooperative sector to dairy farmers, has remained stable during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The average milk procurement was 473.4 lakh litres per day (LLPD) during April 2019. It went up to 480.56 LLPD in April 2020, and to 512.13 LLPD in April 2021.The average milk procurement price paid to dairy farmer by the cooperative sector stood at ₹34.38 per kg during April 2019, ₹38.01 during April 2020, and at ₹39.23 during April 2021 (for 6 per cent fat content and 9 per cent solid-not-fat content category).

Stating that the his department is reviewing the milk situation in the country to monitor milk procurement, sale, price and stocks of skimmed milk powder (SMP), butter and ghee, etc on regular basis, he said it collected information on milk procurement, price, sale and stocks on daily and weekly basis from cooperatives during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 to analyse the dairy business situation in the country.

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