In a bid to raise milk productivity and ensure remunerative prices to dairy farmers in Odisha, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has launched a multi-pronged programme involving cooperatives at an investment of about Rs 15 crore to begin with.
"NDDB plans to strengthen dairy farming in Odisha where estimated milk production stood at 1.86 million tonnes in 2013-14, which is 1.4 % of national milk production," NDDB Chairman T Nanda Kumar told reporters here.
The cooperative dairies together produced 3.9 lakh kg per day in 2013-14, which is 1.1 per cent of country's cooperative milk procurement, he said adding this represents 13 per cent of the estimated surplus, as against 18 per cent for the country as a whole.
Presently, 20% of inhabited villages are covered by cooperatives as against national coverage of 23 per cent, said NDDB's Managing Director Dilip Rath.
Therefore, there is considerable scope to increase coverage and provide greater market access to small milk producers of the state, he said adding in terms of milk production, Odisha has registered a growth of 6.2 % per annum during last decade up to 2012-13, higher than the national growth of 4.6%.
However, average milk productivity in Odisha stood at 1.5 litre per animal as against national average of 4.5 litre, he said pointing out that National Dairy Plan (NDP-I) is specially designed to address the issues of productivity enhancement and providing greater market access.
Under NDP-I, seven sub-projects of 3 End Implementing Agencies have been approved with the total outlay of 15.1 crore. NDP-I would emphasise on Rational Balancing Programme (RBP), Fodder Demonstration and Village Based Milk Procurement System (VBMPS), Rath said.
With coverage of 600 villages, local resource persons would be providing ration balancing advisory services to 44,000 milch animals, he said adding about 6000 additional milk producers are to be enrolled of whom 50% would be women.
Stating that NDDB's efforts are geared towards involving more women in collective business and governance, Rath and Kumar said apart from strengthening existing dairy cooperatives, formation of women dairy cooperatives and increased participation by women in existing cooperatives would be emphasized.
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