Ahmedabad
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.1 SATURDAY 1MARCH 41 201 I
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Two major cooperatives ask govemmentto keep
dairy sector outside FTA negotiations purview
New Delhi, March 3: The
country's two major dairy co-
operatives have urged the
government to keep dairy
products outside the ongoing
trade negotiations with vari-
ous blocs including hugely
milk surplus regions such as
European .Union, Australia
and New Zealand.
Cooperatives say that any
cut in import duties would
have adverse impact the liveli-
hood of 15 crore farmers asso-
ciatedwithmilkprocurement.
Inacommunication to'com-
merce ministry; R S Sodhi,
managing director of Gujarat
Cooperative Milk Marketing
Federation(GCMMF)hasstat-
ed, "India is producing more
than 150 million tonne of milk
valued at over ~6 lakh crore
which is more than any other
agricultural crop production
including wheat arid rice. .
'~lowing any import of
dairyproductsintolndiaata
concessionaldutyratewould
be directly affect more than
15 million families who are
dependent on same milk for
-
~
the livelihood,".
' While calling upon the gov-
ernmenttoconsiderlongterm
impact of providing import
dutyreductionondairysector,
Sodhi has stated that neces-
sary action should be taken
against providing duty con-
cessions and keep dairying
completelyoutofambitoffree
trade agreement with the Re-
gional Comprehensive Eco-
nomic Partnership (ReEP), a
mega-regional economic
agreement being negotiated
between the 10 Association of
South-East Asian Nations
(ASEAN) countries and their
six Fl'A partners: Australia,
China, India,. Japan, New
Zealand and South Korea.
"If cheaper imports of milk
products are allowed, we will
be hit hard. Cooperatives'
overhead costsaremuchhigh-
erthanforeign or private play-
ers as we have commitment to
buyallthemilkbroughttoprO'
curement centres," Rakesh
Singh, managing director,
Karnataka Cooperative Milk
Producers' Federation (KMF)
toldFE.
Currently the inlport duty
on Skim Mtlk Powder (SMP) is
15% whileincaseofbutteritis
ashighas40% .
GCMMF, also known as
:A.rnul', and KMF, which sells
its products under 'Nandini'
brand, had daily processed 160
lakh and 65lakh litres, respec-
tiVely; of milk in FY16. While
Amul reported a turnover of
~23,OOO crore, KMF reported
sales of 'HI,779crorelastfiscal.
A couple of years back, In-
dia's self-sufficiency index in
dairy products was mea-
sured aslOl, while of New
Zealand was reported at
more than 500, while that of
Austr~ia was recorded as
125. This implied that New
.Zealand and Australia have
huge surplus milk output.
According to US depart-
ment of agriculture report,
New Zealand with a surplus of
milk production is likely to
witnessaonepercentincrease
in milk production to around
21.6 million tonne in the cur-
rent year out of which more
thar170% of the milk had ~o be
exported. EU at present has
stocks of Skim Milk Powder
(SMP) of about 4.2 lakh tonne,
which is to be exported.
Following the operation
flood launched in 1980s, the
dairy cooperative network
includes 254 cooperative
milk processing units, 177
milk unions covering 346 dis-
tricts and over 1,55,634 vil-
lage-level societies. More
than 15 crore farmers have
been brought under the am-
bit of village level dairy co-
operatives who have around
650 lakh litres daily process-
ing capacities. "Our cost of
production is higher as large
number of smallfarmersare
associated with milk pro-
curement," said an official
with National Dairy Devel-
opment Board, the apex body
of cooperatives.
Out of total annual milk
production of 160 million
tonne, around 50% is market-
ed. Cooperatives and private
sector have a share of 50% of
the marketable surplus and
the rest is still to be sold by un-
organised sector players.