The Story Of Indian Dairy Industry: From Scratch To Success

Introduction The livestock sector of India is one of the largest in the world. It has emerged as one of the major engines of agricultural growth in our country. As a matter of fact, the livestock sector contributes more than 25% of total agricultural GVA and 4.5% of total GVA. Among the various livestock products, milk has always held a higher rank than the other products viz. meat, eggs, wool, hide, etc. Since times immemorial milk is considered an essential component of the human diet providing various nutrients owing to its high nutritive value and also offers a wide range of health benefits. Milk is defined as the whole, fresh, clean, lacteal secretion obtained by the complete milking of the udder of one or more healthy milch animals, excluding that obtained within 15 days before or 5 days after calving or such periods as may be necessary to render the milk practically colostrum free and containing the minimum prescribed percentages of milk fat and milk solids not fat (SNF). The dairy industry of India today stands tall with the global milk production of 176.3 MT (19% of world milk production), which has reached a mark of 187.7 MT for 2019 as per the provisional report of DAHD, 2019. We have come a long way from being milk-deficit to surplus producers. The given article is an attempt to help the readers to develop an understanding of the growth of the Indian dairy industry from scratch to success.

- Neha Thakur *1 and Vandana Chaudhary2

In the beginning

The dairy industry was almost completely unorganized in the initial stages. Although a beginning to organized milk handling was made in India with the establishment of Military Dairy Farms (oldest; Allahabad, 1889), a number of other steps in the post-independence era were undertaken to establish an organized system of milk collection, processing, distribution, and storage. They included handling of milk in co-operative Milk Unions established all over the country on a small scale in the early stages, long-distance refrigerated rail transport of milk from Anand to Bombay since 1945, pasteurization and bottling of milk on a large scale for organized distribution at Aarey (1950), Worli (1961), Calcutta Haringhata, 1959), Delhi (1959), Madras (1963), etc.