Growth and instability in milk production in India: A state level analysis

Abstract

Milk is an important livestock product produced and exported from India. Its production has increased 1306 folds since independence. The present study attempts to examine the growth pattern, variability, sources of growth and instability in production of milk from different species (buffaloes, cows and goats) at the state level. Time series data on no of milch animals, yield and production for the period 2004-05 to 2023-24 has been used to compute compound growth rates, Coefficient of variation, Coppock’s Instability Index (CII) and for performing decomposition analysis to attain the objectives. The average milk production increased by 68.18% from 114854 in 2004-13 to 193165 thousand tons in 2014-23 while coefficient of variation increased from 12.54% to 15.85% during the same period. While the cow milk share has shown continuously increasing trend backed up by exotic/crossbred milk, buffalo and goat milk has shown continuously decreasing trend. Overall Highest growth rate in milk production has been reported by Cows milk (6.58%) followed by Buffalo milk (4.19%). With in the cow Exotic/Crossbred Cows showed highest growth (7.89%) compared to Non Descript/Indigenous Cows (5%). Similar to production growth rate has increased in PII compared to PI and this increase was highest for cow milk (30.37%), followed by goat milk (15.52%) and buffalo milk (6.46%).Highest increase in growth rate between PI&PII is observed in milk animal(50.6%) than production(28%). Similar results were obtained for milch animals and yield. Overall Milk production has registered Highest growth rate compared to milch animals and yield. Overall instability is higher in yield than animals and production for Buffalo milk and goat milk where as instability is higher in production in cow milk. Overall animals are contributing more to production instability at all India level. all types of milks have shown stable production in PI& the stability has decreased in PII but the index values are with in the tolerable limits. It can be concluded from instability analysis that India’ milk production has shown stability in all the parameters (milch animals, production and yield) as indicated by values of CII less than 10%. There is no risk in major (top10) milk producing states which account for 81% of milk production and milk production is stable but growth is high in only top 2 states i.e Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan while other states need to be focused to achieve high growth though the production is stable. At the country level, India had achieved significant growth with low instability in milk production. However, large variations in growth rates and instability were detected at the state level. Decomposition analysis showed that yield has contributed more for increasing milk production at all India level with a share of 45.76% while animals accounts for 40.58% of increased production. There is no negative effect in all the periods and both Animals and yield have contributed for increased production for all types of milk. Yield has contributed more in increasing production for all types of milk except exotic cow milk. Except few NE states like Manipur, Nagaland, Daman&Diu, A& N Islands 90% of states have contributed positively for increased production between PI&PII. Overall 20.1% of change in variance of milk production is accounted by Change in yield &Animals covariance. Change in Animals variance (17.5%), Interaction between changes in Animals variance and mean yield(12.68%) also accounted for major share. All components have contributed for increased variance of production with no component accounting for stabilizing the variance.