In the past few months, India’s domestic milk market has seen a rise in milk prices, and according to Union Minister Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, this is because of an increase in feed and fodder costs.
Balyan, who is Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairy, said dairy companies pass on 75 percent of the retail price to farmers. There is a need to strike a balance between farmers and consumers. Farmers need to get higher returns on milk for them to take up dairy farming, he said.
There has been an increase in the price of feed and fodder recently, which has caused the price of milk to rise. “If fodder rates come down, automatically milk prices will also decline,” the minister said.
Balyan also informed me that three private firms are conducting trials of a vaccine developed by the Hisar-based ICAR institute for the control of lumpy skin disease (LSD) in cattle. “The trial is underway. “I am hopeful that after the trial, the vaccine will be commercialized soon,” he added. Milk prices have been hiked multiple times by leading suppliers in the last year.