AIR Spotlight is an insightful program featured daily on the All India Radio Newsonair. In this program, many eminent panellists discuss issues of importance which can be quite helpful in IAS exam preparation. This article is about the World Dairy Summit 2022.
World Dairy Summit 2022
After a long gap of 48 years, India hosted the World Dairy Summit-2022 organised by the International Dairy Federation (IDF).
India’s Growth in the Dairy Sector
- The history of dairy in the Indian subcontinent goes back roughly 8000 years. Milk has been an important component of the diet of Indians. Ayurveda, an alternate form of medicine, practised in India recommends daily consumption of milk due to its digesting properties.
- India has been the world’s largest producer of milk for over two decades and also the largest consumer with most of the state of art infrastructure required to handle milk production in place in the country.
- India is also going to be a big market for dairy and allied businesses.
- The white revolution in India made India self-sufficient in milk production. White Revolution, also called Operation flood, started in the year 1970 and was aimed to create a nationwide milk grid. It was a rural development programme initiated by NDDB – National Dairy Development Board of India.
- The dairy model of India is different from those of other countries of the world. In India, dairy farmers are small landless farmers with a small number of animals and for whom dairy is the only source of livelihood.
- In an agrarian economy like India, milk production plays an important role in doubling the farmers’ income.
Inaugural Address by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the International Dairy Federation World Dairy Summit (IDF WDS) 2022 organised in Greater Noida.
- The driving force for the dairy sector in India is small farmers. The dairy sector in India is characterised by production by masses more than mass production.
- The potential of the dairy sector not only gives impetus to the rural economy but is also a major source of livelihood for crores of people across the world.
- There is a huge network of dairy cooperatives in India.
- India is the largest milk-producing country on the basis of the efforts of the small farmers with just one, two or three cattle. The dairy sector provides employment to more than 8 crore families in the country.
- As compared to the 2% production growth at the global level, India is clocking the milk production growth rate at more than 6%.
- There is a 70% representation of women in the dairy sector of India. The dairy sector in India is more than the combined value of wheat and rice and this is all due to the efforts of women in this sector.
- India is working on a digital system which will capture end-to-end activities of the livestock sector. This will provide accurate information needed to further improve the sector. India is building the largest database of dairy animals and every animal associated with the sector is being tagged. (Pashu Adhar – Biometric identification of animals).
World Dairy Summit (WDS):
- WDS is an annual congregation of the global and Indian dairy industry, the farmers, suppliers, experts & policy makers involved in this sector.
- WDS 2022 was a four-day long (12 September – 15 September) summit and had 24 sessions centred around the theme “Dairy for Nutrition & Livelihood”.
- Milk is a near complete food and rich source of important nutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals in biologically available form.
- Dairy provides livelihood and economic resilience to millions of people across the world through large dairy farms as well as smallholder systems.
- Around 1500 participants from 50 countries participated in IDF WDS 2022.
- The main sponsors were – Amul from Gujarat, Nandini from Karnataka, along with Mother Dairy from Delhi.
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