The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) sets its sights on an ambitious goal, aiming to elevate India’s status to account for one-third of the global milk production by 2030. Chairman Meenesh Shah underscores the significance of this objective, emphasizing the pivotal role of breeding, nutrition, and animal health in achieving this monumental target.

Strategic Collaboration: Government and NDDB Partnership

Collaborative efforts between the Government of India and NDDB form the cornerstone of this transformative mission. Shah highlights the synergy between stakeholders, outlining a concerted approach towards enhancing productivity and bolstering India’s position as a global leader in the dairy sector.

Path to Progress: Focus on Productivity Enhancement

With India currently contributing 24 percent of the world’s milk production, Shah stresses the imperative of augmenting animal productivity to bridge the gap with developed nations. The concerted focus on breeding, nutrition, and health interventions underscores NDDB’s commitment to driving sustainable growth and economic prosperity.

Steadfast Growth Trajectory: Sustaining Momentum

Against the backdrop of a 6 percent annual growth rate in milk production over the past few years, Shah emphasizes the need to sustain this momentum. Despite global challenges, India’s dairy sector remains resilient, poised to maintain its upward trajectory and surpass conventional benchmarks.

Regional Initiatives: Empowering Assam’s Dairy Sector

In Assam, NDDB spearheads transformative initiatives in collaboration with the state government, aiming for holistic development of the dairy industry. Through strategic partnerships and grassroots interventions, the joint venture endeavors to enhance milk procurement, empower farmers, and foster cooperative growth.

Capacity Expansion: Strengthening Infrastructure

The expansion of the West Assam Milk Producers Cooperative Society (WAMUL) signifies a significant stride towards strengthening dairy infrastructure. With increased production capacity and the establishment of new facilities, WAMUL seeks to meet burgeoning demand and uphold quality standards.

Sustainable Solutions: Harnessing Renewable Energy

NDDB’s commitment to sustainability extends to the adoption of renewable energy sources, including solar power. By embracing eco-friendly practices, the organization aligns with global efforts to mitigate climate change while ensuring energy efficiency and resource optimization.

Conclusion: Pioneering Progress in Dairy Sector

As India embarks on its journey towards becoming a global dairy powerhouse, the NDDB’s visionary initiatives underscore the nation’s commitment to agricultural excellence and socio-economic advancement. With innovation, collaboration, and sustainable practices at the forefront, India’s dairy sector charts a course towards a prosperous and resilient future.

World Milk Day is established by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to recognise the importance of milk as a global food. As milk is one of the healthiest drinks in the world, which is packed with nutrients, it is often subjected to fraud for financial gain. Some unscrupulous producers are engaging in milk fraud as a result of the increased demand as well as increased competition in the dairy market and the increasing complexity of the supply chain. Targeting this, we have seen a surge of start-ups in recent years that are assisting in the supply of high-quality milk. Let’s take a look at these start-ups.

The agritech start-up, AgNext has innovated and developed a full-stack integrated solution deployed as a SaaS platform called ‘Qualix’, to address quality assessment issues across the agribusiness value chain. Ag Next promoted Qualix, is one such first-of-its-kind portable NIR spectroscopy-based milk testing device in India. Apart from being cost-effective, Qualix provides accurate composition (Fat, SNF, Protein and six other trade parameters) and adulteration (detection of vegetable oil, urea, detergent, melamine and starch) testing within 30 seconds. The ease of the process in testing has the potential to impose strict adulteration testing at the point of collection at the collection centre itself. As compared to the present manner of strip-based testing which is time-consuming and is costly, Qualix takes only 30 seconds and has zero no-recurring consumable costs with zero maintenance

MilkLane is India’s first industrial-scale high-quality milk collection and supply platform focused on transforming the supply chain in the world’s fastest-growing dairy market. MilkLane products go through multiple quality checks and are packed at a state-of-the-art facility to provide families with the best quality dairy products. MilkLane is looking to address these challenges by modernising critical stages of the entire supply chain with the focus on creating high quality, toxin-free milk at scale. In order to improve the milk’s quality and cattle’s yield, MilkLane works with farmers to help them scale their cattle herd size from 2-3 up to 20-25 with services on special care and management for the animals.

Milk Mantra is a dairy foods company based in Odisha, India. It was founded in 2009 to solve the trust deficit between consumers and food in India arising out of opaque supply chains and adulterated food. This has been a pioneer in bringing an entrepreneurial revolution in the dairy sector in India and in addressing the widespread consumer trust deficit. Milk Mantra brings ethically sourced high-quality milk and milk products through their brands Milky Moo and Daily Moo to urban consumers in Odisha and West Bengal’s capital Kolkata.

Stellapps is the first of its kind startup in India working towards the digitisation of the dairy supply chain. Bangalore based, Internet of Things (IoT) startup was founded in the year 2011 with a primary focus on data acquisition and machine learning. Milk is the largest crop on this planet and there is a strong need for technological interventions, especially in the emerging markets where the yield per animal is low, traceability is inadequate and quality is not up to the mark. Stellapps offers dairy supply chain digital solutions to improve farm productivity, milk quality, and supply chain traceability.

Sid’s Farm is a premium dairy brand based in Telangana. Established in 2013, the brand has been revolutionising the concept of pure, healthy, adulterant-free milk and milk products. Their range of products includes skimmed milk, whole buffalo’s milk, whole cow’s milk, cow’s ghee, cow’s butter, buffalo’s butter, buffalo’s ghee, cow’s curd, buffalo’s curd, and paneer. Sid’s Farm has developed itself to achieve consistent year-on-year growth for the past few years. Currently, the company serves over 18,000 customers daily on a subscription basis.

International Dairy Federation’s World Dairy Summit 2022 will be organised in Greater Noida Expo Centre, near New Delhi from September 12-15, 2022. Dairy industry stakeholders from over 40 countries would participate and work towards ways to further develop the dairy industry, this was informed at a curtain raiser event in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Chairing the event, Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Sanjeev Balyan expressed his delight over India hosting the World Dairy Summit after 48 years. “It is a matter of great delight that India has got the opportunity to host the World Dairy Summit after 48 years,” said Dr Balyan while speaking at the curtain raiser event.

“The world’s growth rate in this sector is just two per cent, while the growth rate in our country is six per cent. The growth rate in this sector in India will further grow in the near future,” Balyan added. The Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying further said India is currently at the No.1 position in the world in milk production. “Our production is 21 crore tonnes per annum. The availability of milk in the world is 310 gram per day, while we are at 427 gram per day. So, there is a big positive difference,” he added. Underlining that the dairy sector in India is led by cooperatives, Balyan said this sector is linked with employment generation in rural India.

Speaking on the occasion, Meenesh Shah, Chairman, National Dairy Development Board and the member secretary of Indian National Committee of IDF said, “Dairy sector is the most important sector to boost the rural economy of India as it provides income opportunities to about eight crore farmers that is why World Dairy Summit is significant to the stakeholders in India.” Not only the farmers but even the landless farmers are linked with dairy. Milk is an important means of livelihood in our country, Shah said. Shah informed that the theme for the summit is “livelihood and nutrition” as the farmers in our country derive better remuneration from animal husbandry and dairying activities.

He said, “Milk and milk products, we all know, provide a lot of nutrition considering that we have a large number of vegetarian populations in our country. Milk and milk products play a very important role in providing nutrients to rural people. And as the theme of the WDS is based on nutrition, we expect that participants from 40-45 countries and a large number of farmers to be part of the event.” “After the inauguration on the first day of the World Dairy Summit, we will have a special session for the farmers as farmers are our focus area,” he added.

Atul Chaturvedi, Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying said, “The World Dairy Summit is the first physical event post-Covid by the International Dairy Federation. The last event was held in 2019.” “We will get the benefit of experience of the International Dairy Federation and the world leaders on dairy who will come to India and the country will benefit by learning from them what they do for the dairy sector and it will also be a great opportunity for India to showcase its achievements in the dairy sector,” he added.

Piercristiano Brazzale, the President of International Dairy Federation (IDF), said India is the most important country in the world in the dairy sector. Underlining that IDF is a “global organisation”, Brazzale said, “IDF care about all the dairy chain and we give all science-based support to the dairy sector.”

“I want to announce a new IDF Award in Innovation. The award will be given on the 12th of September – the first day of the World Dairy Summit 2022. We will give the award in 12 categories,” he added.

Caroline Emond, Director General, IDF, said the World Dairy Summit will be a great opportunity for dairy farmers, leaders, experts, scientists, professionals and academics to connect, learn and get inspired. “India’s success story of women empowerment will be shared with the world through the World Dairy Summit where we can learn that dairy is an engine of development in India,” she added. World Dairy Summit will provide a window for the world to see the Indian dairy sector, Emond said.

In order to provide veterinary services at the farmers’ doorstep based on the phone calls received at the call centre, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Government of India launched mobile veterinary units (MVUs) from Karnataka. The veterinary units were inaugurated by Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Parshottam Rupala in the presence of Basavaraj Bommai, Karnataka Chief Minister and Prabhu B Chavan, Karnataka Minister for Animal Husbandry.

The overall aim of the ‘Livestock Health & Disease Control programme’ of Government of India is to improve animal health by way of implementation of prophylactic vaccination programmes against various diseases of livestock and poultry, capacity building, disease surveillance and strengthening of veterinary infrastructure.

Rupala during the inauguration event announced that in order to increase the accessibility of veterinary services at farmers’ doorsteps, funds for mobile veterinary units (MVUs) would be provided to the states and union territories under this scheme @ 1 MVU for every one lakh livestock population. These MVUs will be customised fabricated vehicles for veterinary healthcare with equipment for diagnosis, treatment and minor surgery, audio visual aids and other basic requirements for the treatment of animals.

The minister said that this was the best programme to assist farmers and dairy owners to take care of the health of their dairy animals at the right time and to double the farmers’ income thereby uplifting their economic status by utilising these mobile veterinary vehicles in the right manner. The minister urged the farmers’ community and dairy owners and each and every one who was involved in dairy activities to utilise the 290 mobile veterinary vehicles for all the veterinary services by calling toll free animal helpline number 1962.

The call centre would function as the pivot whilst rendering the mobile veterinary services. It should receive calls from livestock rearers, and animal owners and transmit them to the veterinary doctor at the call centre. The decision of directing the MVU would be on the emergent nature of the veterinary case as decided by the veterinary doctor at the call centre. The call centre would also confirm actual services through the UID and mobile number of the animal owner and share the data with the state concerned. Karnataka has been sanctioned with 290 mobile veterinary vehicles against 289 lakh animal population, which will operate throughout the state by the public-private partnership (PPP) model. Rs 44 crores has been sanctioned to procure 275 new veterinary services fabricated vehicles @ Rs 16 lakhs per vehicle. The remaining 15 already existing pashu sanjivini vans will be utilised to match up 290 required vehicles.

The operationalisation cost per vehicle is 18.72 lakhs per year which is about Rs 54.75 crore will be borne by the Central and state government in 60:40 ratio. Each vehicle has a veterinary doctor, livestock inspector and driver cum attendant and having the facility of medicines, audio visual screen for extension activities, siren and many more as for the need. Government of India will release Rs 32.57 crore for operationalisation cost for 290 vehicles and the remaining Rs 28.15 crore has to be borne by state governments.

Establishment & Strengthening of Veterinary Hospitals & Dispensaries – Mobile Veterinary Units (ESVHD-MVUs)

The component ‘ESVHFD-MVU’ under Central sector scheme ‘Livestock Health & Disease Control’ provides veterinary health services at farmers’ doorsteps through mobile veterinary units. The services are to be operated through call centres in the states and UTs. The farmers, in case of any emergency, will make calls to these call centres and after prioritising the emergencies, the services for diagnosis and treatment will be provided by a team of veterinarians and para-veterinarian in these mobile veterinary units.

Tamil Nadu based Milky Mist, one of the largest milk aggregators and a leading dairy brand in South India, has partnered with Dvara E-Dairy Solutions to provide new-age technology solutions to its 60,000 dairy farmers across the 13 districts in the state. Milky Mist procures approximately 6 lakh litres of milk daily from these farmers to produce an array of dairy products. Through this partnership, the company aims to augment the milk yield and production capacity of the farmers and improve their livelihood through the adoption of new-age technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) that Dvara E-Dairy is pioneering.

Generally, the dairy farmers have a few issues like higher inter calving period, low productivity of milk animals, lack of knowledge on scientific feeding and best practices for primary and preventive care for the cattle. To address these challenges, Dvara E-Dairy will provide Milky Mist farmers with technological solutions like the Surabhi Score for Financial Access (SSFA) and cattle specific recommendations and Dvara Surabhi Index (DSI) to help them manage their cattle’s health and adopt scientific methods to improve their procurement volume and enhance their income from dairying.

Highlighting the partnership, Ravi KA., Co-founder & CEO of Dvara E-Dairy Solutions said, “We are delighted to partner with Milky Mist to support their producer farmers in solving pertinent problems. We are confident that the digital intervention will help farmers to increase milk production and improve the quality of milk to complement the growth plans of Milky Mist. Thousands of farmers are using the Dvara Surabhi Index across India to know the cows’ health status (as an indicator) in less than a minute in the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach. At the same time, SSFA enables a digital assessment of the cattle and provides cattle-specific recommendations for dairy farmers. The partnership is expected to bring a game-changing approach in the dairy industry.”

Speaking on the collaboration, Dr. K Rathnam, CEO, Milky Mist, said, “The artificial intelligence-based app developed by Dvara E-Dairy Solutions to monitor, assess and correct feeding practices of dairy cattle is going to be a game-changer for the Indian dairy industry, with positive consequences of impacting sustainable income to the milk producers and social upliftment. Milky Mist is happy to collaborate with Dvara E-Dairy Solutions to help small dairy farmers increase their income and scientifically manage dairy.”

Hyderabad-based Sid’s Farm, a premium dairy brand has expanded its product portfolio by introducing double toned A2 buffalo milk in the market, starting with the city. Competitively priced at Rs. 40 per 500ml packet, the product is targeted at the calorie-conscious, young children and those who have dietary restrictions. As Dr. Kishore Indukuri, Founder, Sid’s Farm said, “Our customers have for long told us that while they love our buffalo milk, it is extremely fat-rich and they would love to have a low-fat buffalo milk option for everyday use.”

“At Sid’s Farm, we pay heed to the smallest of suggestions from our customers. So, taking note of their needs and our market research, we have introduced the Double Toned variant of A2 Buffalo Milk that our customers can enjoy without worrying too much about the calorie count in their favourite drink. Our market research has given us interesting insights on the type of products that the customers are looking for and this double toned buffalo milk is the first in the line of many product innovations that Sid’s Farm is poised to bring about in the coming months.”

The double toned buffalo milk is lean—without a lot of fats but still packs in the same goodness of buffalo milk, only with lesser calories. Also, as Sid’s Farm puts great emphasis on quality, the milk is further fortified to ensure higher nutritional benefits, the dairy company claims. Apart from physical outlets and shops, the double toned A2 buffalo milk will also be available for order and home delivery on Sid’s Farm app. The firm also has plans to tap into the customer base of leading large format retail outlets across the city to market the product.

As Dr. Indukuri pointed out, “one of the main differentiators of Sid’s Farm products is the quality. The double toned A2 buffalo milk also went through rigorous quality tests and scores of iterations to bring about the right colour and taste, if used for tea or coffee apart from the regular milk intake by kids and adults. We have tried to create a product for day-to-day household usage and consumption.”

Spread over more than four acres of land, Sid’s Farm today has a 4000 sq ft milk processing facility along with a model dairy farm. Today the state-of-the-art laboratory conducts on average about 2000 tests daily to look for any adulteration in milk. Sid’s Farm aims to benchmark quality as the main USP of the milk and any other product that we bring to the market. The target consumers of Sid’s Farm are ready to pay 14-15 per cent premium in terms of cost just to have a quality product. The milk and milk product-based business entity is aiming for 10 per cent of the Hyderabad market by 2025 using quality milk and well-researched milk-based products as a healthy alternative, the milk firm says.

As part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahostav and Kisan Bhagidhari Prathmiktha Hamari Abhiyan, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying is organising an awareness programme on entrepreneurship schemes and other beneficiary-oriented flagship programmes of the department. It is being done through common service centres network by holding 8,000 village-level camps across the country. This is being organised from 25th April to 28th April 2022. Each day one lakh farmers will be joining through common service centres (CSCs) across the country.

Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying addressed the farmers connected Tuesday through camps and informed them that realigned National Livestock Mission (NLM) and Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM) schemes now have a component of breeder farm entrepreneurs and fodder entrepreneurs. One lakh farmers from northeastern states, Bihar, Odisha West Bengal participated. NLM will help in creating rural entrepreneurship and help in creating better livelihood opportunities for unemployed youth and livestock farmers in the cattle, dairy, poultry, sheep, goat, piggery, feed and fodder sectors. He emphasised the importance of adopting advanced breeding technologies and their implementation at the ground level. In order to promote the advance breeding technologies, he also requested farmers to go for artificial insemination (AI) and silage making availing the benefits of various existing central schemes.

Secretary (DoF & DAHD I/c), Jatindra Nath Swain briefed the farmers about Pradhan Mantri Mantsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) and Fisheries & Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF). He added that flagship schemes of the Department of Fisheries could be availed by fishers and fish farmers from every corner of the country. He also mentioned that, in order to create the forward and backward linkage for the produce available in the unorganised sector and for connecting it with the organised sector, these schemes of the ministry would help in the development of entrepreneurship.

Briefing on entrepreneurship schemes of the department, informative session on livestock management during the summer season and fodder management, and success story presentations were done during the occasion. Attendees have been given information about these schemes, as well as how to apply on the scheme portal through the CSC itself.

In order to supplement the farmers’ income in Punjab, leading to another white revolution in the state, Meenesh Shah, Chairman, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) assured to support the Government of Punjab’s endeavour in setting up 12 milk plants in the state with an estimated outlay of about Rs.900 crore.

While discussing with Kuldip Singh Dhaliwal, Minister for Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development & Fisheries, Govt of Punjab at NDDB, Anand today, Shah said that NDDB would work with Govt. of Punjab and arrange the required financial and technical assistance. As there are already 11 milk plants, covering 6,000 villages in the state, the numbers would rise to 23 and cover a total of 12,000 villages. This would help in procuring additional 10 lakh litres of milk per day.

In order to overcome the problem of pollution and to provide cheaper feed to the dairy farmers, Govt. of Punjab would establish total mixed ration (TMR) plant at Amritsar on the lines of two plants successfully operational in Ganganagar in Rajasthan and Kolhapur in Maharashta, at an estimated outlay of Rs.80 crore. NDDB would provide all necessary assistance. This would also help solve the problem of burning crop residues.

For imparting education in dairying on the lines of National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), NDDB has assured support in preparing a proposal for developing a similar institute in Punjab. The Punjab Minister thanked Chairman, NDDB for assuring the above assistance to the state.

Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying (DAHD), Government of India has launched a pilot project in the state of Uttarakhand to implement the ‘One Health Framework by One Health Support Unit’. The key objective of the Unit is to develop a national ‘One Health’ roadmap based on the learnings of the pilot project implementation. Inter-ministerial One Health committee under the chairmanship of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India has been established to lead the implementation of the One Health Support Unit. A Project Steering Committee (PSC) is constituted under the chairmanship of Secretary (AHD), GoI involving representatives from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; Indian Council of Agriculture (ICAR); civil societies; international development organisations and field practitioners.

Based on the recommendations of PSC, state and district level one health committees need to be constituted by involving competent authorities from health, animal husbandry and environment ministries. Some of the key activities to be undertaken as part of the pilot project include institutionalising the mechanism for data collection on disease outbreaks, prevalence, management, and development of targeted surveillance plan, integrating a network of laboratories, developing and implementing communication strategy across sectors and integration of the data with the digital architecture of the National Digital Livestock Mission.

Addressing the launch of the pilot project, Atul Chaturvedi, Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying said, “The ‘One Health India’ programme initiated by the department will work with stakeholders from various sectors to improve livestock health, human health, wildlife health and environmental health through technology and finance. The pilot in Uttarakhand will support the creation of the One Health Framework for India and help build a strong social infrastructure that supports the health of the people and the planet. We look forward to coordinated engagement among all stakeholders for the successful implementation of the pilot.”

“We are happy to move forward with the implementation of the One Health framework in India, the pilot projects will help capacity building and understanding disease prioritisation. Six interventions have been planned for the implementation of the pilot. The interventions will cover institutionalisation and operationalisation aspects for better coordination amongst different relevant sectors. With the support of the state departments and all stakeholders, we look forward to the successful implementation of the pilot.” said, Dr. Praveen Malik, Animal Husbandry Commissioner, Government of India.

Addressing the implementation of the One Health programme in Uttarakhand, Alkesh Wadhwani, Director, Poverty Alleviation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation India said, “The One Health approach is key in ensuring sustainable development as it addresses interdependencies among people and the planet. We are happy to support the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying to initiate the pilot project in Uttarakhand and pave the way for the implementation of the national One Health Framework.”

Over 68 per cent of milk and milk products sold don’t conform to FSSAI standards. SecuLock is thus the long-awaited dairy management solution that puts the dairy industry’s challenges of adulteration and pilferage to an end.

As per the solutions announced by Ingen Technologies, SecuLock comes with a Smart e-Lock system that includes an electronic door-locking device, central server, mobile application, and control devices. The pre-installed tracking device captures and transmits location data to a central server for en-route theft and pilferage prevention and monitoring. And the memory store’s location data and locking/unlocking data. SecuLock and all its components are not physically accessible and thus, can’t be tampered with. There are also light sensors installed on the device to detect if the lock was activated during the dispatch of the vehicle. The device can only be operated through OTP enabled login, thus, only a designated officer can access the lock.

SecuLock is a revolutionary product that can also be leveraged by other industries like cargo, courier, and companies handling transport of bulk goods from one point to another with high chances of on-road theft and adulteration, the company claims.

Briefing about the solution, Dr. Ashish Agarwal, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Weather Risk Management Services said, “We are leveraging our decade-long experience in dairy supply chain management with the launch of SecuLock. SecuLock is a fool proof solution to manage theft and pilferage that amounts to a huge loss every year due to the unavailability of potential preventive measures or devices. As a leading technology-driven company, we are keen to observe the magnitude of positive change SecuLock will bring in the dairy industry and help dairy partners procure and distribute dairy products in the healthiest and most secure way possible.”