Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh

Dinesh Patidar from Bahi village in Mandsaur district in Madhya Pradesh, about 350 kilometres (kms) from the state capital Bhopal, bought a cow from Haryana just before lockdown to enhance his dairy business. But things didn’t quite work out for him as due to inflation, the price of diesel-petrol and cattle feed has gone up so much that it made it difficult for him to even recover his input costs. Worse, the cow fell ill and died.

Many Mandsaur dairy farmers like Dinesh are not able to sell milk for more than Rs 19 per litre to the government diary. If it is full fat milk, the government dairy pays them Rs 30 per litre for that. The private dairies on the other hand offer these farmers anything up to Rs 40 a litre. However, the private dairies can only buy a limited quantity of milk from the dairy farmers who are therefore forced to sell to the government dairies.

On March 1, dairy farmers in Haryana, in compliance with the decision of the khap panchayat, decided to stop supplying milk to cities, and farmers like Dinesh say if things do not improve, they may have to follow suit. 

“Maintaining cows and buffaloes is a costly affair; if a cow falls sick, the doctor takes five hundred rupees for an injection. So, either the price of milk is increased to hundred rupees a litre or we forget about dairy farming,” said Dinesh who also pointed out that packaged water was being sold at Rs 20 a litre in the markets while milk was fetching Rs 19 a litre. 

About 80 million rural households are engaged in dairy production, among whom the number of landless, small and marginal farmers is the highest. According to a report, the Indian dairy sector has grown at 6.4 per cent in the last four years, while the rise in global milk production is only 1.7 per cent. Milk production in the country has increased from 146.3 million metric tonnes in 2014-15 to 187.7 million metric tonnes in 2018-19. Madhya Pradesh produced 1,460 thousand tonnes of milk in 2018-19. 

While the dairy sector is growing, dairy farmers say that the existing price of milk is unable to even recover the cost of the cattle feed for their milch animals which has gone up from Rs 1,450 for a 60-kg sack to Rs 1,850 per sack since the COVID-19 lockdown. They have to then add grass, etc. to the purchased feed before feeding the cattle. “On an average it costs  approximately hundred and fifty rupees to feed one cow per day,” said Dinesh. Only if they feed the cattle this amount will it yield between five to seven litres of milk. In effect, the dairy farmer hardly earns any profit.

Several farmers have purchased milch animals for as much as Rs 70,000 and have found it a struggle to even recover the interest on their purchase prices. The investment on their milch animals is considerable, they said. They have set up coolers, fans and water for their animals, besides cattle feed, which costs a lot of money, they pointed out. And, if the cost of transporting the milk was added to his expenditure, the dairy farmer suffered a significant loss. The fuel prices have been rising with no corresponding rise in the price they are paid for the milk, they said.

Nowhere to turn

During the COVID-19 lockdown, the farmers did not get a fair price and in many states, they had to throw away milk. Fifty six per cent of dairy farmers said they had difficulty supplying milk as per the Gaon Connection survey.  

Pankaj Patidar, another dairy farmer from Mandsaur, said the price of milk was grossly inadequate. He reiterated how the cost of living had gone up and with it the dairy farmer’s expenditure. 

“Cattle feed, medicines and electricity go into rearing the animals. If one needs to deliver the milk out of the village, one needs diesel and petrol and with the diesel and petrol price rise, expenditure has shot up. With the increase in petrol and diesel prices the freight of cattle feed will also go up,” he pointed out. “If this situation persists, we will have to begin processing milk at home into desi ghee which sells for up to seven hundred rupees a kilo,” he added.

Milk collection falling

Deepak Gurjar owns a private dairy in Mandsaur. He pays the dairy farmers a better rate than the government dairy does but is finding the going tough. He was collecting about 400 litres of milk each day for 10 years, but said if he had to continue supplying milk on a large scale, he would have to increase the price of milk. At present he buys milk at anything between Rs 18 a litre to Rs 42 a litre, depending on the fat content in it. 

Bahi village has a government dairy that is operated by Manoj Patidar, who is a dairy farmer himself. According to Manoj, five to six per cent fat milk is taken in at the dairy. Manoj is able to collect only about 300 litres of milk per day. “Earlier, the milk collection used to be higher but now the collection has started going down due to low prices,” he said.  

“The government had said during the lockdown that it will take care of the instalments of those who had taken loans to rear animals,” Rahul Patidar, who came to sell milk at the government milk collection centre, told Gaon Connection. “But I know of many farmers who have had to pay fines because they were unable to deposit their instalments on time,” he added. Showing his milk slip, he continued, “The price for my good milk is no more than twenty nine rupees a litre. It should be at least fifty rupees a litre.” 

According to him, his input cost to maintain the good quality of milk he supplies is between Rs 45 to 50 per litre.  For now, he has more hope from the organic manure that his cattle provide him.

Read the story in Hindi.