With cattle fodder in short supply, Nandura’s khowa-makers in dire straits

It is five ‘o’ clock in the morning just outside the Nandura railway station in Buldhana district of Maharashtra.

The air is dry and slightly cold. The scalding summer of Buldhana, which is a part of drought-prone Vidarbha region, is yet to set in.

As you move around the railway station, one thing that hits you like a hammer is the smell of hundreds of kilos of Khowa or dried milk, sold as a raw material for making Indian sweets. The trade is brisk at the makeshift bazaar, which is known as Nandura Khowa market, right outside the railway station.

In traditional Indian culinary art, Khowa, which is also known as Mava, is used as a raw material for making Indian sweets or mithai.

The 50-year-old bazaar comes alive every morning with buyers coming in trains and local buses for transporting about five to six tonnes of the milk product. The goods change hands rapidly, but the Khowa manufacturers are not happy as prices have dipped and the overheads of maintenance of cows and buffaloes have gone through the roof.

The drought in Vidarbha has created an acute water scarcity, which has affected fodder availability for farm animals. Khowa manufacturers are forced to spend much higher amounts on maintaining the cattle.

Dairy farm owner and Khowa manufacturer, Shankar Dandge of Matola village near Nandura, says for the last 15 years he has been making Khowa and rearing cattle in his village, but such water scarcity is unprecedented.

He says Nandura is a famous centre for Khowa in the whole of Vidarbha region. The produce is sent as far as Pune and Mumbai, which are over 450 km away from Nandura. But this year the business is a loss-making one as animal feed, including green fodder, is in short supply. The drought-like condition has resulted in a massive shortage of fodder. This fodder has led to a sharp rise in input costs.

Dandge had to buy additional green fodder of ₹2 lakh for his 25 cows and buffaloes. This additional cost in the last year has completely destroyed the business.

“Earlier, I was not incurring such costs as I had enough water in the open and bore wells with which I could grow green fodder in my field. Today, I am conducting this loss-making business as I have no alternative and have to maintain 25 animals. This year, I can’t feed green grass as nothing is grown in my field,” Dandge said.

For watering his fields, Dandge has laid one km pipeline from his cousin’s well but is not sure if the water from that well will last for the next 15 to 30 days. After that, he will have to buy water from the tankers for the survival of his farm animals.

Anil Mankae, who is also a Khowa trader from Nadura, says this year the cattle feed made from the leftover of Toor ( Arhar) has in risen to ₹4,500/tonne from ₹1,500/tonne, which is almost a three-time increase in a span of 12 months.

In the same range, prices of cattle feed based on corn and green gram have also increased. But the prices of Khowa have dipped due to market conditions.

Mankae said today the market price of Khowa is ₹160/kg, but the cost of making it has risen to ₹180/kg, and wondered in such a scenario how the business will be successful. Last year, traders of Nandura were selling their produce at ₹200/kg.

He also alleged that the market is also affected by sweet shop owners using synthetic Khowa from Gujarat. The contents of such a synthetic material are not known. But it is sold as ‘Barfi’ in the local market, which is being used by shop owners.

Dandge said the local Khowa makers have also started improvising and changing their product mix by adding sugar to Khowa, which is directly sold as Peda (traditional Indian sweet) to retail shop owners. Adding sugar helps in retaining some margin in the business.

He added that due to lack of proper nutrition, cows and buffaloes are only providing on an average of six litres of milk per day, while earlier it used to be 10 litres. Therefore, additional mineral mixture as cattle feed has to be given to animals, which has further added to the costs,

In Vidarbha, due to unstable prices for farm produce, farmers moved to dairying as a part-time profession. But that too is in danger due to rising costs, he said.

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