Dr. Rupinder Singh Sodhi, Managing Director of Amul India and International Dairy Federation board member has hit out at excess ‘dairy dumping’ from foreign countries and the recent rise of ‘highly processed’ plant-based dairy as foremost threats to India’s largest agricultural sector.
Some 100 million families in India are dependent on the dairy industry for a living, but increased milk imports and the plant-based dairy movement are causing undue threat to the traditional dairy industry.
Dr. Sodhi lamented that India is one of the largest consumers of milk worldwide and also one of the fastest-growing, so when other dairy-rich countries markets are growing; everyone wants to come to India and dump their excess milk production here. “This will impact the livelihood of local Indian dairy producers which number some 100 million and are a major threat to the sustainable development of Indian dairy.
“Another major threat to the industry is the recent rise of analog or plant-based products. These so-called plant-based milk are not even plant-based but are instead lab-based highly-processed chemical foods.
” Citing one brand of almond milk, he blamed the product for containing additives such as stabilizers, emulsifiers, and artificial fortifications of minerals and vitamins in its ingredients list. “Some of these also contain vegetable oil – there are hardly any plant-based ingredients in there, not more than 7% to 8%. So how much do dairy producers get out of this? Not more than 7% to 8%,” he said.
“This means that plant-based products may be sustainable only for the particular industry, but not for the farmers, and due to the many additives used and high processing levels, it cannot even be said that it is sustainable for the country or even the environment.
We are part of the dairy industry, and the dairy producers are at the heart of this, so I feel if the dairy industry goes into such lab-based, artificial, chemical-based, factory-based, highly-processed food, I don’t think we are doing justice to our people who have made the industry what it is today – so why would you want to do this and give profits to others?
Also a great deal of focus has been placed on the global dairy industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the name of climate change and environmental sustainability and India should not be classified under the same umbrella as developed nations in this sense.
Talking about environmental concerns, people say methane production from the dairy industry is a big issue and needs to be cut – but in reality, we know India is only producing one-tenth or less the methane emissions of developed. At any rate, India already has one of the world’s most sustainable dairy systems – we produce a lot of rice, wheat, sugarcane, etc. and grains and pulses are a major source of nutrients for our 1.35bn population – but whatever remain (roughages, leftover grains) is used to feed the cows and buffaloes.
“No milk produced is wasted as 40% of this is self-consumed by the 100 million farmers, 20% is sold in villages, and the remaining 40% surplus goes to urban consumers where half is sold through the organized sector and the other half through the unorganized sector. Even the cow dung is not wasted – this is kept and used to produce gas, as fuel, and as manure for agriculture. Without it, more chemical fertilizer used would affect soil health.”