The co-operative dairy industry has made rural milk production a considerably large rural employment programme in the country and has made significant contribution to equitable economic development in rural areas, said Verghese Kurien, chairman of the National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India Ltd (NCDFI) here today. He was addressing the 31st annual general meeting of NCDFI at Anand today.
He added that dairying in India goes far beyond being an important agri-business sector of the national economy. He observed that livestock rearing (milch variety) provides regular employment to nearly 1.84 crore people principally or in subsidiary manner and constitutes about 5 per cent of the total workforce.
He expressed serious concern regarding recent suggestions that the dairy industry should consider adopting the typically western high input-output model. Pointing out that large scale holdings of milch animals, that is 15 milch animals per milk producer, is fundamentally inconsistent with the Indian rural environment, he said in that case India would require only 45 million milch animals reared by 3 million producers.
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He said the Milk and Milk Product Order (M&MPO), 1992, maintains and increases the supply of liquid milk of desired quality in the interest of the general public.
But it also provides the basic framework for the orderly growth of domestic dairy industry.
Kurien highlighted that dairy cooperatives are consolidating their achievements by focussing on three important issues, quality improvement