Crisis of Dairy Farmers in India: A Study of Major Milk Producing States

India is the largest milk producer with a share of 23 percent in global milk production (IDM 2022:11). The USA is a distant second since 1997 with a 12 percent share in world milk production. The per capita availability of milk in India has increased from 227 grams/ day/ person in 2001 to 427grams in 2021–22 In the farm-dependent population of 263 million comprising cultivators and agricultural labourers, farmers eking out livelihood solely from dairying is as high as 100 million, which is larger than the total population size of many countries in the world (IDM 2022:10). The livestock sector contributed 28.63 percent to the Gross Value Added (GVA) of agriculture and allied sectors in India in 2018–19. In the GVA of the country, the livestock sector contributed 4.2 percent in 2018–19 (GoI 2021:240). The Niti Ayog has estimated that milk production in India will touch 330 million MT and India’s share in world milk production will increase to 31 percent by 2033. The employment elasticity of milk production is estimated to be 6000 days of employment for every one lakh litres of milk produced (IDM 2022:11). More importantly, milk production and cattle rearing have a gender dimension too. Of the total workforce engaged in raising cattle and buffaloes, 69 percent are female workers (NSO 2020) and the female workers employed in the sector constituted 5.72 percent of the total female workforce in the country. More than 93  percent of the females engaged in raising cattle and buffalo reside in rural  areas. The crisis of reproduction in the crop production sector has gradually percolated into the livestock sector as well.