The price of cow milk is likely to come down in Andhra Pradesh. The Andhra Pradesh Dairy Development Cooperative Federation (APDDCF), a public agency that supervises dairy activity in the State, has written the Government, seeking a reduction in the price to Rs 16.50 a litre from Rs 19.
The Federation argues that this would make the dairies to procure cow milk. Andhra Pradesh, which has been a laggard in cow milk production in the South, has witnessed a sudden spurt in production, leading to a difficult situation for farmers.
The ratio of cow and buffalo milk in the State is 30:40 as against 47:53 in the country. Globally, this is put at 87:13. The State produces 3.30 crore litres of milk a day, including one crore litres in the organised sector. Vijaya Visakha dairy tops the list with a production with 7 lakh litres, followed by Heritage, Jersey and Thirumala dairies with 5 lakh litres each.
The South is a leading producer of cow milk, with 70 per cent of all milk produced from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is cow milk.
As a result of increase in cow milk in the State, which is not a favourite choice of consumers, farmers are finding no buyers, leaving them in huge losses.
Officials of the Animal Husbandry Department had hinted on Tuesday that the federation was strongly in favour of the reduction of the price. “The Federation had increased procurement of cow milk to 6 lakh litres a day this year as against 3.5 lakh litres last year. Both the quantity of milk procured per farmer and the number of farmers increased, leading to the increase in the milk procured,” they said.
kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in