The leadership of the Indian Dairy Association: on the right chairman Animesh Banerjee and on the left vice chairman Dr N.R. Bhasin, who is responsible for the IDC’s activities in the north ofIndia.
Chairman Animesh Banerjee and Vice chairman Dr N.R. Bhasin of the Indian Dairy Association (IDA) aren’t mixing their words. The organisation was founded in 1948 by Indian dairy scientists in the city of Bangalore, home to more than a million people. As the sector has grown, the number of member dairy businesses has grown. To cater for its new cross section of members, the organisation became the IDA on 23 September 1976 and relocated to New Delhi. Today its members are drawn from research, information and education, dairy co-operatives, privately owned businesses, multinationals and the public sector.
Cooperation
‘First, we are going to spread our wings in our own region,’ says the IDA’s enthusiastic chairman. ‘You are familiar with the East African Dairy Association? That’s a group of African countries that joined the IDF, the International Dairy Association, in autumn 2005. They will be visiting India soon and we are going to sign a collaboration agreement with them. We’ll also be strengthening our links with Vietnam, only logical since, like us, they produce a lot of buffalo milk. These are ways in which we are strengthening our contacts in our region.’ Banerjee also mentions that as a result of the WTO negotiations, the Indian dairy sector has joined the Global Dairy Alliance. The dairy sectors of Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Argentina are also involved. ‘It is in the interest of all Indian dairy farmers without land that the US and the EU stop subsidising their dairy farmers. If they do, our people will get higher prices for their milk. Dairy means more to us than just the milk, it gives our poor population the chance to get above the poverty line. That’s why we are arguing for the end of all dairy subsidies. If we achieve that, these people will live in greater prosperity, harmony and peace.’
Advantages
‘Some 70% of Indian milk is produced by small, marginal cattle farmers,’ says vice chairman Bhasin when asked to sketch the Indian dairy sector. ‘They tend to be organised into village co-operatives. Despite all efforts to modernise in the past 15 years, the smaller businesses still form the backbone of the Indian dairy sector.’ In his opinion, this structure has certain significant advantages. One advantage is social. Organised in this way, dairy farming offers millions of people, united in more than 100,000 small village co-operatives, the opportunity to produce milk. Thanks to the model used, the Anand model, only low investment per animal is required. The economic advantage of this system and its low level of investment is that India is able to compete on cost price with other milk-producing countries. While investment in logistics is high, particularly in cool chains, much of the milk is sold in the villages where it is produced.
Dr Bhasin considers this to be extremely favourable given that it keeps down sales costs. Finally, another factor he regards as positive is the fact that milk in his country is produced by two animals, namely buffaloes and cows. The buffalo not only produce milk with higher fat and protein content, but they provide greater sales opportunities for processed products. He is referring to Europe where the buffalo cheese Mozzarella is increasingly being regarded as a speciality product. And worldwide Mozzarella is becoming the preferred industrial cheese on pizzas and in snacks. There are opportunities ahead for the Indian dairy industry, of that he is convinced.
Drawbacks
At the same time, he agrees that the dairy chain in his country needs to make headway if it is to participate in the international arena. Only once the dairy chain has been modernised, will the Indian sector be able to play a significant role in the world. He believes a great deal of investment is required in scale increases, quality improvements and food safety in the sector. ‘If we look at our region, then Australia and New Zealand are our greatest competitors. They offer dairy products made from cow’s milk. In this respect it’s a disadvantage that more than half of our milk in India comes from buffalo. It has a higher fat content than cow’s milk and slowly but surely we are seeing consumers choose less fat in their diets,’ says the IDA executive.
He says that roughly 740 milk-processing companies are active in the Indian dairy industry. Some 500 of them can be described as quite efficient. But most of them produce a fairly limited range of dairy products based on drinking milk, butter and paneer or cottage cheese. ‘It is time for new marketing strategies. The Indian dairy sector must turn its attention to products with added value. India is, for example, the cradle of ethnic sweets made from sweetened condensed milk. You could sell these sweets all over the world. After all, Indians now live all over the world. I recently visited the United States, and what did I see? Exactly, a wide range of ethnic Indian sweets for sale in American supermarkets. Only, they were produced in Canada. Another product of the Indian dairy industry is ghee, a liquid butter product. I will spare you the details, but thanks to a new production procedure, the product has been stripped of all cholesterol. Look, we should do something with that. In fairness, I think we need more time to improve our infrastructure and approach,’ says Dr Bhasin.
Article from India Dossier, ZuivelZicht - 14 december 2005  |