The Centre's efforts on encouraging agriculture-allied sectors such as animal husbandry and horticulture for increasing farmers' income, is finally bearing the fruits now and as a result, in the past eight years, incomes of small and land-less farmers have shown remarkable increase, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday.

After inaugurating the new dairy projects of Sabar Dairy in North Gujarat, Modi stated that, because of the Centre's efforts, the farmers' incomes are showing significant increase across the country including Gujarat.

Doubling farmers’ income

"Horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries are contributing to the rise in the farmer's income. The most important thing is that the land-less farmers have reported the maximum increase in their incomes. This means that apart from the farm produces, the strategy to work on alternative ways to increase farmers' income is now bearing fruits," the Prime Minister said.

Notably, in 2016, Modi had set a goal to double farmers' income by 2022.

He also stated that improving the Khadi and village industries is another way to generate wealth in the villages. "For the first time ever, the annual turnover of khadi gramodyog (village industries) has crossed ₹ 1 lakh crore. This is why in past eight years, this sector has generated over 1.5 crore new employment opportunities at the village level," Modi said, addressing the milk producers of Sabarkantha and Aravalli districts in North Gujarat.

New & improved units

On Thursday, the Prime Minister inaugurated two dairy projects and laid foundation stone for another project of the Sabarkantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union (Sabar Dairy) at Himmatnagar. Sabar Dairy is one of the 18 dairy union members of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which makes and markets Amul’s milk products.

Sabar Dairy’s milk powder plant with a capacity of 120 tonnes per day (TPD) has been set up at a cost of ₹300 crore

Sabar Dairy’s milk powder plant with a capacity of 120 tonnes per day (TPD) has been set up at a cost of ₹300 crore

Sabar Dairy's milk powder plant with a capacity of 120 tonnes per day (TPD) has been set up at a cost of ₹300 crore. They have commissioned an expanded ultra-high treated (UHT) milk packaging plant at the cost of ₹125 crore with a capacity of 3 lakh litres per day(LLPD).

The dairy is also setting up a Cheese & Whey drying plant for around ₹600 crores. The plant will manufacture cheddar, mozzarella and processed cheese with a capacity of 20, 10 and 16 TPD respectively The whey generated during the manufacturing of cheese shall also be dried at a Whey drying pslant with a capacity of 40 TPD. The Prime Minister laid foundation stone for the project.

Shamalbhai Patel, Chairman, Sabar Dairy said, "In past twenty years, our milk processing capacity has increased from 3 LLPD to 30 LLPD. We used to pay ₹ 165 per kg of fat to the milk producer in 2002, but today, we are paying ₹860 per kg of fat. The dairy has touched its highest ever turnover of ₹6,800 crore for the fiscal 2022." What started as a union of 19 milk cooperative societies in 1964, has today become a strong union of 1800 societies with around 1.23 lakh women members.

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