Karnal dairy research institute marks World Milk Day

ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, celebrated World Milk Day-2025 on its campus on Sunday.

The event, themed “Let’s celebrate the power of dairy”, focused on promoting the nutritional benefits of milk, and the socio-economic and environmental importance of the dairy sector.

Dr JP Mishra, Director, ICAR-ATARI, Jodhpur, as the chief guest at the event, lauded the role of NDRI in the growth of India’s dairy sector.

He said NDRI’s contributions in terms of elite breed development, animal cloning and novel value-added products, extension practices and adulteration detection kits, and other stakeholder centric technologies/practices were vital to enhancing farmers’ income and, thereby, increasing dairy the sector’s contribution to the Indian economy.

Dr Dheer Singh, Director and Vice-Chancellor, ICAR-NDRI, said India, a milk deficit nation during early Independence, had emerged as the largest milk producer in the world.

He said the Indian dairy sector involved about 450 million small and marginal farmers, and the contribution of the dairy and animal husbandry sector to India’s GDP was 4.5 per cent.

The contribution of the dairy sector to the agriculture sector was 24 per cent — valued at around Rs 10 lakh crore, the highest in the world.

He said NDRI supported the nation’s White Revolution by helping with quality germ plasm, elite breeds, skilled manpower, valuable insights and timely inputs.

Due to these collective efforts, India had been reigning as the largest milk producer in the world since 1998, he added.

Currently, annual milk production in India was 239 million metric tonnes (MMT), and the per capita milk availability was 471 gram per day. The per capita availability of milk in India was higher than the world’s average per capita availability of 322 grams per day, he said.

As per an estimate, India needed to produce 330 MMT of milk per annum by 2033 to meet the country’s demand for milk and milk products, he added.

“In the recent decade, milk production growth averaged 6.6 per cent. However, to achieve the targeted 330 MMT, we need to achieve at least a 14 per cent annual growth rate, but constraints such as increasing fodder costs, decreasing farm land and emerging diseases are a threat to the goal,” he said.

A series of competitions were organised for students to creatively express the significance of milk and dairy in daily life, sustainability and national development.

These included a collage-making contest with the theme “Evolution of Indian dairy industry” and a painting contest themed “Zero waste dairy: Innovation and sustainability”.