Add Aussie technolo y to Indian milk, stirwel

New collaborations are set to open up between Indian and Australia in the dairy industry

Ahigh -level 16 mem ber lndian dairy business delegacion visited Australia this month to exp lore potential coUaboration opportunities.

The delegation was led b y Yes Bank, India's fourth largest private sector bank, and was supported by Austrade.

Auscrade has recently signed a Memorand um of U nderstanding with Yes Bank's Food and Agribusiness Strategic Advisory & Resea rch Group (FASAR) to offer Australian experience to impro ve the productivity and exports of India's food and agricultural sector , i nc ludi ng the dairy sector, as India addresses its food security concerns.

The d e legation, representing so me of the l argest dairy companies in India, toured Australia n research inscitutes, farms and dairy companies to understand technologies for possible use in India.

The L1dian delegation was made up of chief operating officers of agri business co ncern s and NGOs, agri commodities experts, research scientists, veterinary scienrists and entrepreneurs in the dairy industry from across the countr y T hey belonged m cooperative and private dairy sector companies such as the International Food Policy Research Institute (TFPRI), ITC Led, Gopal jee Dairy Foods, Deshpande Fopndarion , Lakshya Foods, Rajkot Dair y of th e Amul union Paras Dairy, Asad Farms and Kiaro Farms.

Traveling co Me lbourne and Brisbane, delegates gained an insight into Australian dairy farming, processing techno logy; \Vaste management, breeding, and research and practice in genetics

"I'm excited about the possibilities in two particular aspects," N i tin Puri , speaking o n b eha lf of the delegation , cold Indian Link at tl1e e nd of it all. ·'These are farming procedures and genetics. There's a lot of scop e fo r us to learn fro m Australia here, and there are significant possi bilities for business collaboracious as weU".

Puri is tl1e head of FASAR, a division of Yes Bank which focuses o n consul ting, advisory, po licy and research in food and agriculture, working in the multinational, Indian corporate, government and multilateral space.

''India is the largest producer and consumer of milk iJ1 the world at 140 million to nnes per day," Puri said. " This means that while we are se lf-sufficie nt in daiqr, we are nQt really exporting Auscralia o n the other hand, prod uces one - tench of what we produce, b u t exports half of i t, thanks to its expertise in processing and livestock development"

Another stack difference in the Ind ian and the Auscralian industry is in farm size. "In India, tl1ere would be about rwo to three cows per farmer," Puri observed. "Here, it is hundred cimes that number.

A narui-al advantage i s pasture areas lilied with open grass. We don't have that, sadly; and because we h ave to m ake it up with consolidated feed, cosr structures become involv ed. The yield size, currentl y at 6-7 litres per farmer per day, is stagnati ng. We are not foUowing good practices ro see a su bstantial increase. In Australia, even thoug h the number of farms have gone down in receuc times, tl1e herd size per farm has gone up, trip led in many cases, sc) the farms have scaled up tl1eir operations".

U nlike Australia which is very strong on value-added lo nger shelf-life p r oducts su ch as c he ese and specialised milk powders (it is the world's fourth largest exporter of processed dairy produces), tl1e Indian cons umption is in liquid milk only. But wi tl1 an increase in health consciousness and lifestyle in the expand ing Ind ian middle class, tl1is need for value -add is growing, and so t he domestic marke r will star t seeing a shortage too.

India's Na rional Dairy Development Board has forecast milk demand co touch 180-200 million tonnes by the end o f 2020. Yet a ational Dairy Plan (NDP) drawn up in 2010 proposes co n early double India's miU: producrion by that rime.

Fortunate!)~ stakeholders are eager to bring in m o m entum to see chis throug h.

"U nlike other areas of food production, dairy is far more evolved in India," Puri noted. "No doubt tl1i s is becau se of theinfluences of co-oper atives such as J\mul in the 1960s, and more recently, tl1e involvement of the private sector. Storage, for example, is at par wi tl1 g lobal pracrices, as opposed to grains which is under governme n t control".

Changes have also been induced by factors l ike easy cr edi t facilities and dair y friendly policies by the governme n t, so tl1at dairy farmin g is less agrarian and more a professionally managed induscry " W/e are currentl y on the lookout for ini tiatives to h ave a marketable SLltplus in the next five to seven years".

And this, he is sure, wiU come from he rd genetics.

"Genetics wiU be a game changer. W hat we've l earnt in Australia this trip has been a revebrion for us. I'm foreseei n g that with Australian tec hn ology helping us in farming metl1ods and in generics, we wiU be able co increase our production subs tantially"

A u stralia showed off its dairy expertise and techno logy to lndia ar tl1e Dairy Show in H yderabad earlier this year. It provid ed an engagement m odel to co1mect with t he Indian industry using tl1e global PRETSS approach (offering exp ercise in policy, research, equ ip m en t, technology, servic es an d s kills).

Here's to another white tevolurion in India, with a b iLof help &orn A L1stralia

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