An Indo-Dutch collaboration has taken shape in the industrial town of Kanpur to promote entrepreneurship in the dairy sector and boost sustainability of dairy farms.
Kanpur-based dairy company Tasty Dairy Specialities Limited has collaborated with a Dutch consortium to set up a dairy excellence centre. The company has joined hands with PUM Netherlands to establish INDUCED (Indo-Dutch Centre of Excellence in Dairying) in Kanpur.
The two organisations would sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for INDUCE tomorrow in the presence of Dutch Ambassador Alphonsus Stoelinga, Tasty Dairy CMD Atul Mehra told Business Standard.
Funded by the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs, PUM Netherlands has a global footprint. It supports sustainable development of small and medium size enterprises in developing and emerging markets. PUM has assisted over 40,000 organisations in about three dozen countries.
INDUCE aims at working towards the growth of the Indian dairy sector by enriching the knowledge and skills of dairy farmers and aiding dairy farms become sustainable and profitable, Mehra underlined.
Besides, PUM CEO Johan Van de Gronden and PUM expert Johan Koeslag would also be present on the occasion.
“Our previous programme was aimed at developing the knowledge and skills of street vendors of food products. This time, we are working for the growth of dairy farming in India and have roped in PUM Netherlands to work with us in building a roadmap to sustainable development of dairy farming,” Mehra said.
The new centre fits with the overall agenda of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to boost the dairy sector for supplementing rural incomes and thus contributing towards the ultimate goal of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre to double the farmers’ income by 2022.
Earlier, Yogi had even sought the support of domestic dairy giant Amul to bolster the UP dairy sector.
The main objectives of this Indo-Dutch collaboration are to establish a centre of excellence in dairying that could be a blueprint for others, increasing skills of small scale dairy farmers, training 25 medium-sized dairy farmers per year, establishing a medium size model dairy farm, which could be used for training farmers and field workers and enhancing the performance of the dairy plant by increasing efficiency and diversifying product lines.
Although India is the world’s largest dairy producer and consumer, yet its per capita consumption is a third of the US, while milk productivity per cattle is also low.
Besides, Indian dairy farm size and average cattle per farm is low compared to global standards. At the same time, Indian dairy farms produce a lot of wastage and spoilage of milk at the farm level.
Milk yield per animal in India is 6-7 litres compared to over 35 litres in other countries. The country also lacks proper cold chain from farm to factory, while there are too many middlemen involved, which reduces the ultimate yield to farmers.
Source: Business-Standard