Low Productivity of Indian Dairy Animals: Challenges & Mitigation Strategies

June 9, 2024

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Low Productivity of Indian Dairy Animals: Challenges & Mitigation Strategies

*Dr.M.G.Sindhu

Assistant Professor (J/C), Department of VAHEE, Veterinary College Hassan. KVAFSU

Introduction

India is one of the highest milk producing country then also per capita milk production in Indian is much low compare to other milk producing county. India is not able to meet its local milk demand. The average milk production per cow and buffalo per year in India is too low. The cost of milk in India is too high. Indian cattle farm is working on very low efficiency. Due to lack of knowledge, lack of proper medical history the mortality of cattle is too high. Cattle farmer also face problem in maintaining vaccination and health history of his livestock. Other major challenges of dairy industry are inefficient supply chain and traditional way of rearing cattle. For the revival of industry now it become necessary to adopt modernization in cattle farms, Increase the use of technology and shifting towards organized way of cattle rearing. It is time to restructure and revitalize the present institutional set-up in the livestock sector, enhance institution-level efficiency, and promote new institutional models to handle the emerging challenges in livestock sector development. The efforts should aim to promote and nurture the grass-root level participatory bodies all over the state as the organic link between the animal husbandry department and the small holders. Dairy industry is poised to play a major role in our nation’s economy in the years to come. The value of milk is set to achieve a new boom. The industry’s major contribution in providing newer avenues for employment, both direct and indirect, and its role in improving the nutritional standards of our people also add to the importance that needs to be attached to this sector during the 21^stcentury.

Challenges Faced by the Indian Dairy Industry

The average annual milk yield of Indian cattle is 1172 kg which is only about 50 per cent of the global average. The frequent outbreaks of diseases like Foot and Mouth Diseases, Black Quarter infection; Influenza, etc. continue to affect Livestock health and lowers productivity. India’s huge population of ruminants contributes to greenhouse gases emission. Reducing greenhouse gases through mitigation and adaptation strategies will be a major challenge. Crossbreeding of indigenous species with exotic stocks to enhance the genetic potential of different species has been successful only to a limited extent. Limited Artificial Insemination services owing to a deficiency in quality germ-plasm, infrastructure and technical manpower coupled with poor conception rate following artificial insemination have been the major impediments.

The Indian dairy sector faces many challenges, such as:

Low productivity: India’s productivity per animal is very low. The significant reasons are limited availability and affordability of quality feed and fodder, traditional feeding practices, lack of veterinary, limited supply of quality animals, and ineffective cattle and buffalo breeding programs.

Production Inefficiency: Inadequate farm management, Inadequate access to finances, lack of affordable technology, and access to information led to low production efficiency in India.

Safety and Quality issues: India faces quality issues due to contaminated water, milk adulteration, use of pesticides, mycotoxins, heavy metals, and veterinary drugs.

Dairy farming challenges in India

Shortage of feed/fodder

With regard to the utilization of available feed and fodder, unproductive dairy animals compete in equal numbers with their productive counterparts. The total grazing area gets reduced every year due to urbanization & industrial development. This results in the shortage of feed and fodder in the context of total demand, hiking up fodder prices, and resulting in inadequate feeding. This ever-increasing demand-supply gap restricts overall milk yield. Poor quality forage and lower purchasing power of small, marginal dairy farmers and agricultural labourers engaged in the dairy industry adds to the whole conundrum.

Breeding system

Late maturity in the majority of Indian cattle breeds is a common problem. Cattle owners don’t have a proper and effective detection mechanism for heat symptoms during the oestrus cycle. The calving interval (the time gap between the birth of a calf and the birth of a subsequent calf from the same cow) is on the rise, reducing animal performance. Diseases causing abortion and mineral, hormonal and vitamin deficiencies lead to fertility problems, affecting the industry.

Education and Training

Scientific education and training programs on good dairy practices is the need of the hour and could overcome critical challenges faced. They need to be effectively marketed, to boost participation in such programs. Education and training for all dairy sector employees become essential to develop a sense of ownership, and to inculcate proper knowledge of best practices. Implementing such programs in the dairy sector requires strong, relentless commitment from the management, which at times could be a stumbling block.

Hygiene Conditions

Many cattle owners do not provide proper shelters to their cattle, leaving them exposed to extreme climatic conditions and the vagaries of nature. Cattle shed and milking yards are unhygienic, giving rise to mastitis. (In this, the udder tissue or mammary glands get inflamed due to physical trauma or microorganism infections. It is the most common disease in dairy cattle in the United States and worldwide). Unhygienic milk production also leads to poor quality milk being stored and spoilage of milk and other dairy products.

Marketing and Pricing

Dairy farmers continue to get un-remunerative prices for milk production. Due to the adoption of extensive cross-breeding programs with the Holstein Friesian breed, the fat content of a cross-breed cow’s milk is on the decline. Because of this, lower prices are offered, since milk price is estimated based on fat and solid non fat milk content. Due to a lack of proper marketing and education, commercial dairy enterprises are poorly perceived by farmers as an alternative to other livelihoods.

Low dairy penetration & high cost of milk handling and distribution:

In India, dairy penetration continues to be at low levels. Milk is mainly collected by private players and sold to private dairies or other members of the distribution channel. Milk passes through multiple levels until it reaches the pasteurization centers, thereby increasing the final retail price. There is good scope for reducing the number of agencies handling milk, to minimize the overall cost of handling.

Dominance of the unorganized sectorshave predominance over the Indian Dairy Industry. On account of the same, despite India being the largest producer of milk and milk products, none of the major Indian dairy companies feature on the list of top 15 major dairy giants, while one makes it to the list of top 20 dairy companies in the world.
Per capitamilk consumption The per capita consumption of milk in India stands at 106 kgs per year, which is well below that of other major milk markets, except for China.
Regional play – Being a highly perishable product, milk is required to be procured from nearby areas in order to take it for processing. Furthermore, for the liquid milk, procurement and distribution distance should be minimal for the economies of profitability to play out. Also, the availability of animals in a particular area, farmers’ inclination towards selling the produce to co-operatives and self-consumption, demand and supply for the milk and dairy products within a region affect the prices of the milk. As a result, the milk prices in India vary with state to state and region to region within a particular state.
Weather conditions and environmental factors – Climate change and scarcity of water are the major threats to the dairy industry. A temperate weather is more conducive to higher milk production – the raw milk availability declines during summers. A drought or a rainfall deficit results in increased cost of cattle feed and reduced availability of cattle fodder thereby constraining milk supply. Such adverse weather and seasonal conditions may lead to a decline in supply and a spike in raw milk prices.

Mitigation and Adaptation strategies

Nowadays, environmental aspect is very much stressed by the private parties and multinational agencies while funding the animal husbandry projects. Notwithstanding above consideration, it is essential to adopt the following tips for efficient identification and formulation of animal husbandry and veterinary projects:

Need for identifying such technologies, which demand less capital, less time and minimum operations.
Need to explore the possibilities of providing loans at the lowest interest rates with subsidies for dairy development activities.
Need for Gradual improvement of existing indigenous breeds of animals. Need for Gradual removal of useless stock and replacement with high yielding superior quality animals.
Need to Gradual manipulation in husbandry practice for improving animal productivity and adoption of biotechnological interventions in feed and fodder, reproduction and growth aspects.
Need for Government role in improving the supply of inputs and service to dairy farmers / beneficiaries at their doorsteps with minimum cost.
Need Contribution from various nongovernmental agencies/organization to ease the problems of farmers in association with the governmental agencies. Need for developing viable farmer’s cooperatives societies / federations like, milk producers cooperative societies at village and district levels, federations, boards and corporations.
Need for simultaneous development of cold chain storage and marketing facilities especially for milk and milk products.
Need for extensions services from the Government, Agriculture Universities, R&D institutions, federations and corporation, besides mobilization of various input services from various agencies

How Industry can overcome these challenges

Process Excellence

Dairy products are a perishable food item. Hence, they have to be refrigerated in robust cold chains and sold quickly to preserve product quality. The short time to market and the quick flow of products differentiates the milk industry from others. Time and information management is key to reducing waste and improving the quality of delivered dairy products, and this is where a lean manufacturing consultant can bring about improvements.

i) Define SOPs/ Process Automation:

Process automation is what IT systems can do to optimize and make your dairy business effective, helping to quicken internal processes by eliminating human error. This could be in the form of Artificial intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Internet of things (IoT), ERPs, chat bots, packaging & handling equipment, etc. All of these helps to save man-hours, which could be better utilized in more critical processes.

Implementing a state-of-art dairy system is the dream of every dairy farm consultant. The industry continues to be plagued by the scarce availability of standardized process documents leading to lack of proper communication (internal & external), mismanagement in feed management, sanitizing practices, input vs output, waste management, manpower utilization, breed selection & tracking, value addition & dairy farm profitability. Dairy consulting services try to address all of these issues and more.

Dairy consultancy services recommend best practices for milk production and procurement, products and procedures and machinery design and maintenance support. They draw up techno-economic feasibility reports for dairy enterprises covering the while milk production ecosystem, and provide R&D assistance for product processes, quality assurance & product testing, including feed analysis and evaluation.

SOPs in Dairy Industry: Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in dairy are instructional roadmaps for the entire dairy’s operations. Dairy businesses worldwide widely use process automation that overcomes the shortcomings of existing methods. Dairy consultants try to ensure that SOPs and process automation covers the following facets of dairy businesses, i.e.