'Gear up to face 'baby boom', increasing aged population'

India has to gear up to face the "baby boom" and burgeoning aged population in the near future and subsequent need for value addition in baby foods and foods for the elderly, a top official of Amul Dairy said.
Inaugurating the nutrition week at Avanashilingam University for Women here today, K Rathnam, Managing Director, Amul Dairy, suggested the need to commercialise traditional foods, genetically modify milch animals and minimise processing losses to achieve nationwide nutrition security.
He traced the origin and development of Amul Dairy in 1946, from merely a milk collection and distribution unit to one of the largest Food Industries in India.

"It is now a specialized unit in the manufacture of value added products providing 80 per cent of returns to farmers, working especially for welfare, upliftment and economic improvement of women farmers," he said.
Stressing the need to cater to the increasing global population, he projected the world population to increase to 10 billion by 2015.
Rathnam invited the University to collaborate with Amul in the effort to empower the nation nutritionally.