President Droupadi Murmu on Monday emphasised the important role played by the dairy industry in ensuring the food and nutritional security of the country.

”The dairy sector also contributes about five per cent to the country’s GDP and provides livelihood to about eight crore families in India,” she said while addressing the 19th convocation of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research – National Dairy Research Institute (ICAR-NDRI) at Karnal in Haryana. Institutions like NDRI have an important role to play in the inclusive development of the country, she added.

The president said that cows and other livestock have been an integral part of Indian society and traditions. She was happy to note that NDRI has developed technology to produce clones of high milk yielding buffaloes and cows. She said that it would increase the milk production capacity of the animals and enhance the farmers’ income.

President Murmu said milk and milk products have always been an integral part of Indian food and culture. India was the largest milk producing country in the world. ”But, we are facing the challenges of increasing demand for milk products. Apart from this, the dairy sector is also facing challenges like availability of good quality fodder, change in weather due to climate change and diseases in livestock. Making milk production and dairy farming sustainable is a challenge before us,” she said.

She said it was everyone’s responsibility to develop the dairy industry by adopting environment-friendly and climate-smart technologies, keeping animal welfare in mind. She was happy to note that NDRI is promoting various technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farms. Along with this, NDRI was also emphasising on clean energy like biogas production.

The president said that women were playing an important role in the management of the dairy industry in India. This sector could play a very important role in making women self-reliant. Therefore, there was a need to provide them more opportunities in education, training and skill development. Women should also be provided easy loans and market access to set up ventures in the dairy sector.