December 22, 2011
India holds global top milk producer spot
According to the annual report of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) released Tuesday (Dec 20), India remains as the world's largest milk producer.
India's estimated milk production for the year 2010-11 is 121 million tonnes, around 17% of world milk production as against last year's 112 million tonnes. World milk production was up to 710 million tonnes in 2010, up 1.6% over previous year.
Dairy co-operatives collected 9.6 million tonnes of milk in the year, a growth of around 1% over the year, when dairy co-operatives had collected 9.4 million tonnes of milk.
Liquid milk marketing by co-operatives was up by around 4% over the previous year, i.e., around 8.2 million tonnes in 2010-11 as against 7.9 million tonnes last year.
According to the NDDB, the first phase of the National Dairy Plan (NDP) would be implemented in early 2012.
According to Dr Amrita Patel, NDDB chairman, NDP I had been appraised by the World Bank and approval for the project was expected shortly.
The project is proposed to be jointly implemented by cooperative dairy federations, district cooperative milk producers unions, producer companies and state livestock development boards.
An NDDB release said additional funding to activities of a commercial nature such as plants for milk processing and cattle feed manufacture were being explored with the International Finance Corporation.