Current Situation of Dairy Industry and Future Concerns By Abdullah A.

Saeed DVM 5th Semester

Milk is the one of the most nutritious drink naturally present on earth. Milk contains good quality and readily available carbohydrates, a good and healthy amount of fats, and a good profile of amino acids, which makes it a complete diet. Milk is also very rich in calcium. A good amount of milk can be taken as a substitute of diet. Milk is the greatest favor of God to mankind. Man has been drinking milk from beginning of the civilian, which usually came from cow. Even now, in the era of technology, milk has the same values. It is liked and used extensively all over the world. Diary industry becomes a prominent in start of 20th century. Gradually it became one of the favorite business among people. In old times, other milk products were not prepared commercially. But as their demand increased, different companies started selling different milk products like butter, yogurt, cheese, ice-cream, cream and many more. According to Wikipedia, India is world largest milk producing country with the production of 114.4 billion kg/year. Following in the lead are USA and Pakistan at position 2nd and 3rd respectively, with the production of 79.3 billions kg/year and 35.2 billion kg/year respectively. Likewise India is also largest producer of butter and USA is following the lead. USA, Germany and France are the three largest cheese producers in the world. In USA and European Union, dairy industry is based on only cattle. In Asia, buffalo is also used in dairy industry. Pakistan, the third largest milk producing country in the world, is blessed with the best buffalo present in the world. The buffalo of Pakistan is also called black gold. According to Economic Survey Report of Pakistan 09-10, the total population of cattle and buffalo is 34.3 and 30.8 million heads, and the total production of milk is 36299000 tonnes, out of which 27848000 tonnes are produced by buffalo and 15546000 tonnes are produced by cow. According to Ministry of Finance, Pakistan, the milk availability per capita per year is 175.2 liters. These are the estimated figures, the calculated figures, but do you think that every individual Pakistani gets 175 liter of milk per year, the answer is no. there are many reasons behind this no. One of the most important and most common reasons is poverty or increased prices. A normally waged person can never afford milk at 60 Rps/ liter. One should think that why its price is that high, its because of increased prices of animal feeds. Every reason is related to the other. Another important reason is the involvement of middle man in delivery of milk from farmer to the consumer. Actually now there is more than one middle man, due to which cost of milk is again increased. There is also a problem with the system. Government is not doing anything about these high prices. Usually the big dealers of milk in certain area control the price of milk. At this point government should take some action.

Unavailability of veterinarians in the rural areas is one of the biggest problem. Most of veterinary graduates go abroad because of unemployment or low wages. Quacks and veterinary dispensers take full advantage of this by posing as veterinarian. Lack of mechanization is another big problem. Lack of machinery makes the dairy work more laborious. Most of the dairy farmers in Pakistan are short scale farmers. A very low percentage of dairy farmers have more than 100-200 animals. This was all about the current situation of dairy industry in Pakistan. Now I will try to raise few points which may help in the betterment of the future of dairy industry. As I have said above about the middle men, which are the reason for increased prices. This factor should be eliminated. This middle man is the cause of gap between farmer and consumer. This gap has to be filled by introducing new schemes. Mechanization is the most important. If we take a look on dairy industry of developed countries, their dairy farms have thousands of animals. They cannot hire labor to milk these animals. They have automatic milking machines, which milk hundreds of animals simultaneously. Theses kind of mechanization should be introduced in Pakistan. People should be encouraged for starting a dairy farm. Government should provide tax free land and free of interest loans to desiring persons.