World Milk Day 2023: Lakhs of dairy farmers of 22 milk producer companies pledge to boost milk output

World Milk Day 2023: Lakhs of dairy farming members of 22 milk producer companies on Thursday pledged to boost milk production for increasing India's share in the global output, NDDB Dairy Services said.

On the World Milk Day being celebrated on Thursday across various states, lakhs of dairy farmers and their families committed themselves towards making India the 'Dairy of the World', NDDB Dairy Services (NDS) said in a statement.

Out of 22 Milk Producer Companies (MPCs) supported by NDS, 15 have all-women members and all the producer directors on their boards too are women.

These 22 MPCs spread across 130 districts in 9 states, have 8.7 lakh members and 71 per cent of them are women.

Members of these 22 MPCs pledged to 'Make India Dairy of the World by increasing India's share to the total world production', provide quality milk and milk products to consumers by sourcing milk even from the remotest part of the country, and provide a competitive price to farmer members through a transparent process of milk collection and payments.

They also committed to increase milk productivity through breed improvement programmes and better animal management practices.

Meenesh Shah, Chairman of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and its subsidiary NDS, said, "Our Prime Minister has envisioned that India should become the dairy for the world. We are part of this proud community of milk producers and are working on numerous initiatives for enhancing production and productivity in India towards making the dream of the Prime Minister a reality."

According to an official data, total milk production in the country during 2021-22 stood at 221.06 million tonnes.

Top five major milk producing states are Rajasthan (15.05 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (14.93 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (8.06 per cent), Gujarat (7.56 per cent), and Andhra Pradesh (6.97 per cent).

India is the world's largest milk producer contributing 24 per cent of global milk production in the year 2021-22.