India has huge appetite for organic dairy products

As the global marketplace has tightening space for milk produced with hormones, India is a potential market not only for organic milk imports, but also exports.

Only organic milk could put India on the global dairy export map, said Dr Selvam Daniel, managing director, ECOCERT India, a company into certification of organic food, cosmetics and textiles.

India may be a large milk producer, but its exports are low mainly because of quality issues, he said.

Only organic milk will address concerns of Indian citizens regarding the quality of milk they have been consuming, he said.

Dr Daniel said while global consumption of organic milk has been increasing 20 percent annually due to its health benefits, local milk consumption has been falling by 10 percent annually.

Wal-Mart is the biggest seller of certified organic milk, followed by the US' Horizon Organic and France's Groupe Danone. The EU, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Japan and Canada have all banned the use the imports of hormonal milk and dairy products.

Consumers have increasing concerns about milk contamination, which has led to a huge organic milk demand in India, he said.

According to a study done by International Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture and marketing research and agribusiness consultancy genus ab, milk is among top 10 organic foods categories in demand in India, Dr Daniel said.

The market potential for milk and milk products in India was estimated at Rs170 crore, about one-fifth of the Rs2300 crore organic food production.