Milk Demand To Touch 135 Mt By 2010: Icar

The Rs 68,000-crore dairy sector of the country will have to produce 135 million tonne of milk by the year 2010 to meet the growing economic and nutritional demand, director general, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Icar), R S Paroda said yesterday.

The milk production has to be increased from the present level of 70 million tonne to 135 million tonne by 2010 to meet the future requirement as the demand is expected to grow at a rate of six per cent in the near future, Paroda said.

Delivering the convocation address at the second convocation of the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) here, Paroda said the country would be required to produce an additional five million tonnes of milk annually which is not a small task.

He said growing animal and human population would greatly jeopardise our production system. The food supply must increase at a faster pace to offset deficiencies arising out of the population growth.

NDRI director Kiran Singh said two new cattle breeds, namely Karan Swiss and Karan Fries, evolved at the institute were better known for their record high milk yield.

The institute has also developed several processing technologies for large scale manufacture of indigenous dairy products which were being used by the dairy industry, he said.

The ICAR director general said there were opportunities for export of milk and milk products and that the Indian entrepreneurs needed to get ready to face the emerging challenges by meeting international standards and also circumventing possible non-tariff barriers.

We may also take corrective measures to meet the sanitary and phyto-sanitary specifications of World Trade Organisation (WTO) in this regard, Paroda said.

Besides covering processed dairy products, these specifications also extend to the health status of the cattle and other milk producing animals, he said.

While Icar is trying to give a new thrust in the Ninth Plan on improvement of animal health and adoption of quality standards, institutes like NDRI should spearhead the campaign for adoption of sanitary and phyto-sanitary specifications for dairy products.

Development of these standards and creating required human resource should be high on the agenda of the institute.

Cattle and buffalo breeds under various agro-ecological situations still continue to register low productivity despite the fact that India has the largest and strongest national agricultural research system in the world, Paroda said. He said the conception rate for the artificial insemination was dismally low and the facilities were not available at the farmers doorsteps.

NDRI has several cows that have produced five to 10 calves in just one year. The technology has been extended to buffaloes, too.

The successful birth of the first-ever test tube buffalo calf in the world was achieved in 1990 at the institute through vitro maturation and vitro fertilisation, Singh said.