Sustainability of dairy farming

Dairy farming is an age old practice that dates back to the history of civilization. Farm animals are considered as an ancient, vital and renewable natural resource. Dairy farming has always been allied with agricultural activities since time immemorial. Dairying as a whole is doing well as the contribution of the crop husbandry in the agriculture GDP is sometime coming down, while the contribution of the livestock sector is going up. Whatever growth that is observed in agriculture sector, a large part (24.7 %) of it is coming from the livestock sector (GOI, 2006). With the production of 104.8 million tonnes in the year 2007, India is the largest milk producer in the world. This huge quantum of milk comes from the 69 million in-milk bovine population. India's contribution of milk to the world stands around 15 per cent with the growth rate of 5 per cent per annum (Annual report, 2008). The major contributors to milk production in India are the landless and lessland owning families (De Leeuw et al., 2000). Rearing of dairy animals had cushioned the rural households' income from instability of crop production, serves as an important supplementary income for the farm families.