CHALLENEGES AND PROSPECTS FOR AUGMENTING PRODCUTIVITY IN SMALL SCALE DAIRY FARMING

CHALLENEGES AND PROSPECTS FOR AUGMENTING PRODCUTIVITY IN SMALL SCALE DAIRY FARMING

Suresh.C¹ and Sujatha.V² 

1. Corresponding author & Assistant Professor and Head, Veterinary University Training & Research Centre, Nagapattinam-611 001, TANUVAS.
2. Assistant Professor, Farmers Training Centre, Tiruvarur – 610 004, TANUVAS.

Corresponding Author Email I.D:drsureshthambi@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION

The dairy industry in India has prioritized for producing high quality milk as much as possible (Roy et al., 2021). According to Singh et al. (2020c), livestock plays a crucial role in the economic and social life and livelihood of rural populations in India. The most popular and lucrative livestock business is dairy farming. Agriculture, aquaculture, and animal husbandry all significantly contribute to the socioeconomic development of the nation, agriculture sector accounts for 25% of GDP, while the livestock sector contributes approximately 6% (Roy et al., 2021). India’s smallholder dairy farmers view dairying as their primary source of revenue. India is the first biggest producer of milk. According to the 2019–2020 BAHS, per capita availability of milk was 406 grams, and the country produced approximately 198 MT of milk. In milch animal census, the dominant position of the buffaloes as well as crossbred cows has changed. Building the required infrastructure and making proven technology widely available for adoption are the only ways to maximize the output potential of dairy cows. The only product that can be sold for more money than individual cereal crops is milk. This illustrates the essential role of the dairy industry in the nation. There are numerous challenges facing the nation’s dairy industry that must be addressed with sustainable solutions. The profile of the dairy farmers’ skill should be transformed through skill development programmes.

PROFILE OF DAIRY FARMERS

A mere ten percent of lands holding in India are medium-sized and large. In general, land holdings are tiny and dispersed. All throughout the nation, mixed crop–livestock farming is the most common farming system among the main holding categories. However, the distribution of land is blatantly unfair; smallholders and marginal producers control over 78% of all agricultural holdings although less than 33% of all farmland is owned or operated by them. As the world population continues to rise, there are an increasing number of holdings. As a result, overall land holding sizes have been gradually declining over time, eventually rendering individual holdings unprofitable. Reserve Bank of India (1981) reported that the average land holding size across all categories was 1.79 hectares in 1999. It had decreased to 1.34 hectares (Singh, 2001). For the great majority of farmers, diversification in agriculture became necessary to safeguard livelihoods. India’s most common farming system, mixed crop–livestock cultivation, has always included livestock. The most common and social animals are cattle and buffalo, which also provide milk, meat, draft power, and farmyard manure. Distribution of milch animals in particular and livestock holdings in general seem to be significantly less unfair compared to distribution of land holdings. Marginal producers and smallholders, for instance, held more than 67% of the nation’s milking animals, making up the main sector of the milk production industry. A noticeable drop may be seen in the Gini Coefficient, which measures the equity in the ownership of dairy stock. It was 0.43 in 1961, 0.37 in 1971, and 0.28 in 1991. Furthermore, the majority of crossbred milch animals (78%) are also found in small and marginal estates. Although the quantity and species of cows owned by a household vary greatly by location, the average holding rarely goes above three animals. The selling of milk generates significant additional revenue for landless workers who also own dairy cows, especially in villages run by the Dairy Cooperative Society (DSC) and other locations with established infrastructure for milk marketing. Generally speaking, Punjab, some areas of Haryana, and west Uttar Pradesh have bigger stock sizes of cows. There are a few sizable dairy enterprises in the nation; these are primarily institutional or commercial farms that produce milk for use in big cities and other urban regions.

CONSTRAINTS OF DAIRY PRODUCTION IN INDIAN SCENARIO

Across the nation, there are growing shortages of forage (production of dry fodder, such as straws and leftovers, 400 million tonnes, 31% deficit; production of green fodder, 575 million tonnes, 23% shortfall; and production of feed concentrates, 46 million tonnes, 47% deficit). Demand projections are unreasonable because they are based on dietary requirements. Growing ruminant populations force smallholder farmers to adopt unnatural livelihood practices, which has severe environmental consequences for the expanding dairy industry. Due to a shortage of fuel wood and fodder, livestock owners have been forced to permit overgrazing on forestlands and common property resources, which has resulted in the destruction of these areas and the depletion of common property resources. Approximately 100 million hectares, or nearly one-third of the nation’s total area, have been turned into wasteland.

In India, milk is produced on millions of tiny, extremely small farms that are dispersed around the nation and consist of both land and livestock. Land holdings are becoming more and more fragmented and smaller, making them less and less viable. This pushes many smallholders at the bottom of the spectrum into poverty and forces the government to dedicate more and more resources to fighting poverty every year. Thousands of rural financial institutions exist, such as rural credit cooperatives, regional rural banks, and rural divisions of commercial banks. However, institutional credit for dairy production at the farm level is very difficult to access due to procedural complexities, excessive delays, and high interest rates. Smallholder dairy producers’ potential is limited by a lack of high-quality finance. The state governments alone are responsible for providing the inputs and services needed to increase milk production. India has numerous livestock epidemics that are decimating the cattle as well as buffalo populations. This has prevented India from entering the international dairy product markets and caused enormous losses as a consequence of lost production. Smallholders incur the majority of the investment risks and preventable production losses because they possess more than 70% of milch animals. Around with 63 frozen semen production facilities, 33 million dosages of frozen semen generated annually, 40,000 AI distribution outlets, and a vast pool of AI specialists, India may have the world’s largest single AI network. It is also among the least effective and subpar AI services. Eventhough there are over 25 million AIs annually, the system only produces about 2 million progenies annually; bulls utilized in AI should be adequately evaluated to strengthen the AI system.

When compared to cattle, their population has already surpassed what the land can sustain, and their steady and unabated growth poses a severe threat to the viability of all livestock farming. The World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations and the resulting liberalization of the Indian economy increased worldwide competitiveness in the dairy industry, exposing smallholder producers to unfair and uneven market conditions. In order to give Indian small holder farmers the much discussed equal opportunity to compete even in their home markets, the Indian government came up well short of giving them the protection and assistance measures permitted by the WTO.The government’s legislative and regulatory structure has also not evolved in tandem with the WTO and the economic regime. Anand Model Milk Producers’ cooperatives have become the most remarkably successful organizational example of smallholder dairy production. Only 15% of the milk generated across the nation is utilized by the established dairy industry, despite the fact that processing and value addition are essential to small scale dairy production and that the government should liberalize its regulatory framework to draw much needed capital into this sector.

PROSPECTS FOR SMALL SCALE DAIRY FARMING

The bottom 30% of smallholders will be able to advance from subsistence agriculture to increasingly viable crop-livestock farming, adopt intermediate technologies (such as crossbred cattle), and achieve increasing outputs and farm incomes through improved access to and the quality of agricultural credit. The credit reform process logically includes restructuring credit institutions, streamlining processes, lowering interest rates, and doing away with collateral security requirements.

Better use of the family resources that are available will be made possible by changing the production structure in the dairy industry of India by improving the quality of milch animals and maintaining their area within smallholder farming systems. It will significantly increase system viability and productivity. All of the large milk sheds might employ the Punjab Model or the Intense Small Dairy Model of Uttar Pradesh.

It is conceivable to create innovative institution models, improved delivery systems, higher quality AI sires, and more efficient AI can be given India’s extensive AI infrastructure, distribution network, and labour pool. The state departments of animal husbandry should be strengthened, their mandates should be changed from therapeutic to preventive veterinary care, a national programme should be established to prevent and control disease epidemics, and disease-free zones should be established. All of these actions will help smallholders avoid unnecessary production losses, lower their investment risks, close the yield gap, increase output, and make it easier for India to enter international product markets

Smallholders will be able to extensively adopt the true Anand Pattern Producers’ Co-operative Model to handle their assets and business interests if the government restructures its regulatory and legal structure, thereby liberating the co-operative movement. This would enable businesses to transform India’s unique advantages in dairy manufacturing into globally competitive advantages by enabling them to vertically integrate the production, processing, value addition, and selling of milk and milk products in both domestic and international markets. India now has a fantastic opportunity to lower the total number of cattle by developing more effectively draft animals, encouraging the sharing of draft animals, and promoting agro-service centres in important villages for the customary employing of machinery and farm implements. This is because the need for livestock used for farm power is waning. Lowering the number of cows will eventually lessen the negative environmental effects of small scale dairy farming and make animal husbandry in India as a whole sustainable.

Under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) system, India has a large pool of scientific personnel as well as research facilities to support research in the dairy sector. However, the growing internationalization of the Indian dairy industry would be able to obtain significant cost and quality advantages with the redirection of their research priorities, more user participation, and industry finance of the research establishment.

Ensuring better udder health

Udder health is essential in high producing cows. In both hand and machine milking situations, Sub clinical mastitis (SCM) management and udder health care are still dubious tasks. As in previous decades, the role of a competent attendant in regulating the health of the udder is still essential (Hovinen and Pyorala, 2011).

Milking management techniques

Researchers (Bharti et al., 2017) noted that udder shape and type may significantly induce microbial growth and SCM in crossbred cows. They noticed more SCM cases in the hind quarter of udder parts than the fore quarter. One tactic for managing SCM and preserving the health of the udders could be to lower the bacterial burden over the teat ends. Though studies by scientists (Galton, 1988) showed that pre-milking their teats sanitizations drastically cut mastitis incidences by Streptococcus uberis, pre-milking teat sanitizations are usually advised by cleaning udders and teats using water or disinfectants. It was advised by researchers (Bhakat et al., 2015) to use sanitary milking practices at every milking. Low levels of bacterial contamination and sediments, or residues are preferred by milk processors, which are thought to promote the use of pre-milking teat treatments.

Nutritional interventions for Udder health

Higher somatic cell count was noted (Paul et al., 2018) as being extremely important, since it disturbs mammary epithelial cells and lowers milk quality, which eventually results in poor returns. Researchers (Garai et al., 2017) discovered that in West Bengal’s tropical communities, where the majority of small scale dairy farmers kept one to three dairy cows, the prevalence of SCM cases was greater among these cows. Weiss et al. (1990) examined the possibility that clinical mastitis in dairy animals was caused and prolonged by vitamin E and selenium deficiencies. Researchers (Kumari et al., 2019b) looked at the possibility that taking sodium tri citrate orally could lower SCM in hot, humid climates. Numerous studies have demonstrated the significance of vitamin E and selenium as essential ingredient for neutrophil function (Singh et al., 2020f). Researchers have found that vitamin E supplements to cows may help to lower SCM in tropical climates and maintain improved udder health condition throughout lactation (Singh and Bhakat, 2019)

CONCLUSION

Productivity of dairy cows in small and scattered production system should be transformed into intensive higher level of production. The scientific managemental practices through capacity building programmes should be disseminated among the small dairy farmers. Adoption of scientific managemental practices, input supply and ensuring better credit facility with affordable interest rate and attracting rural youth populations in dairy farming will transform the scenario of existing Indian small scattered dairy production system into sustainable green dairy farming through improved dairy productivity.

REFERENCES

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