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EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT DAIRY DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA
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The earliest attempts at dairy development can be traced back to British rule, when the Defence Department established military dairy farms to ensure the supply of milk and butter to the colonial army.
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The first of these farms was set up in Allahabad in 1913; subsequent facilities were established at Bangalore, Ootacamund and Karnal. These farms were well maintained and even in the early stages, improved milch animals were raised.
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As animals were reared under farm conditions, some herd improvement was made using artificial insemination. This approach did not have any impact on the supply of milk to urban consumers, which was of major concern to civilian authorities but less important to the military.
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With the growth of the population in urban areas, consumers had to depend on milk vendors who kept cattle in these areas and sold their milk, often door-to-door.
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As a result, several cattle sheds came into existence in different cities. This was not an environmentally sound approach. As the main objective of the milk vendors was to maximize profit, they started increasing the lactation period. In the process, these high-yielding cattle developed sterility problems, which considerably reduced the number of calvings.
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Once the cattle became unproductive, they were sold to slaughter houses. This practice systematically drained the country of its genetically superior breeds.
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To some extent, the Second World War gave impetus to private dairies with modestly modernized processing facilities. In the cities of Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Delhi and even in some large townships, processed milk, table butter and ice cream were available, though not on a large scale. Polsons, Keventers and the Express Dairy were some of the pioneer urban processing dairies. These dairies were not concerned with improving the breed of milch animals reared in rural pockets but instead were content with contracting milk supplies through middlemen or their own staff.
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Milk producers as well as consumers were exploited. These early modern systems did not bring about significant shifts in milk production, nor did they develop quality milch animals. To a large extent, despite modernized processing facilities, dairying remained unorganized.
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With the initiation of India's first Five-Year Plan in 1951, modernization of the dairy industry became a priority for the government. The goal was to provide hygienic milk to the country's growing urban population. Initial government action in this regard consisted of organizing "milk schemes" in large cities.
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To stimulate milk production, the government implemented the Integrated Cattle Development Project (ICDP) and the Key Village Scheme (KVS), among other similar programmes. In the absence of a stable and remunerative market for milk, milk production remained more or less stagnant. During the two decades between 1951 and 1970, the growth rate in milk production was barely one per cent per annum, while per capita milk consumption declined by an equivalent amount.
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During the 1960s, various state governments tried out different strategies to develop dairying, including establishing dairies run by their own departments, setting up cattle colonies in urban areas and organizing milk schemes.
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Almost invariably, dairy processing plants were built in cities rather than in the milk sheds where milk was produced. This urban orientation to milk production led to the establishment of cattle colonies in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. These government projects had extreme difficulties in organizing rural milk procurement and running milk schemes economically, yet none concentrated on creating an organized system for procurement of milk, which was left to contractors and middlemen.
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Milk's perishable nature and relative scarcity gave the milk vendors leverage, which they used to a considerable advantage. This left the government to run dairy plants for use in large quantities of relatively cheap and commercially imported milk powder. The daily per capita availability of milk dropped to a meagre 107 g during this time. High fat buffalo milk was extended with imported milk powder to bring down the milk price, which resulted in a decline in domestic milk production.
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As the government dairies were meeting barely one-third of the urban demand, the queues of consumers became longer while the rural milk producer was left in the clutches of the trader and the moneylender. All these factors combined left Indian dairying in a most unsatisfactory and low level of equilibrium.
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The establishment and prevalence of cattle colonies emerged as a curse for dairying as it resulted in a major genetic drain on the rural milch animal population, which would never be replaced. City dairy colonies also contributed to environmental degradation, while the rural producer saw little reason to increase production.
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