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http://indianexpress.com/article/in...i-notebandi-gau-rakshaks-vigilantism-4459275/
Written by Anju Agnihotri Chaba | Jalandhar | Published:January 5, 2017 1:03 am
Cattle breeder-farmer Sukhjinder Singh Gumman at his 150-cow dairy farm near Batala, Punjab. (Source: Express Photo)
When farmers have no hard cash with which to buy things – in this case, cattle – the impact isn’t just on themselves. It’s also on other farmers – those in the business of breeding and supplying the same animals, ready to be milked by the former lot. Nowhere is the above special cash crunch-imposed crisis more apparent than in Punjab, India’s No. 1 cow breeding state that supplies an estimated 3 lakh animals – mostly Holstein Friesian crossbreds – worth Rs 2,400-2,500 crore annually to other states. A third of it goes to Gujarat alone, with Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh accounting for the rest.
This entire business – of cows that are reared in Punjab, milked in Gujarat and whose produce comes back for sale, including in Delhi and other northern markets – has been hit by the Narendra Modi government’s November 8 decision to demonetise all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination currency notes.
Punjab has some 6,500 dairy farmers owning anywhere from 10 to 500 animals each, and also into rearing of cows ‘ready to sell’ for others to milk. These breeder-farmers are today faced with a sudden demand collapse – sales have plunged to half their levels two months ago – and lower prices for their animals. According to them, freshly-calved two-year-old Holstein cows that are ready for milking, and can give 7,500-8,000 litres over a ten-month lactation cycle, are now selling at Rs 80,000-90,000, compared to Rs 1-1.2 lakh before demonetisation happened. Prices of 18-month-old pregnant heifers have, likewise, fallen from Rs 80,000-90,000 to Rs 60,000-65,000.
“I cannot be selling at these rates, which will just about cover my rearing costs”, notes Jaswinder Singh, who has a 60-animals farm at Gujarpur Khurd village in Banga tehsil of Nawanshahr district and sells 10-12 cows every year. Singh had 10 cows that he was supposed to sell in December, but couldn’t “because no trader came to me and even the ones whom I have contacted say there’s no cash with farmers in other states, who are our ultimate buyers”. He is now left with no option, but to sell the milk from the ‘ready to sell’ cows, which can at least take care of their rearing expenses.
Harbans Singh, too, is stranded with an equal number of cows bred for sale purposes. “I will wait for two more months for prices to improve. Traders have also advised me to hold on till cash returns to the market”, says this 40-animals dairy unit farmer from Kathgarh village in Nawanshahr’s Balachaur tehsil.
“It’s strange that milk prices are rising, but the rates for our animals are falling. I don’t see milk prices going down because there is a real supply problem that is already evident. At some point, cow prices will also have to catch up and we are living on that hope”, points out Balvir Singh, general secretary of the Ludhiana-based Progressive Dairy Farmers’ Association, who operates a 50-cows dairy farm at Udhowal village in Nawanshahr.
Amarjit Singh, a cattle trader from Chimna village in Ludhiana’s Jagraon tehsil, pegs the total rearing cost for a two-year-old cow ready for milking at Rs 80,000-85,000. “Farmers normally earn a profit of between Rs 10,000 and Rs 30,000 per cow. That, however, is ruled out at the current prices”, he admits. While there are buyers willing to pay higher rates against cheque payments, breeders are unwilling to accept these. “What if these bounce is what they tell me and I have no answer to that”, he adds.
“For us, this is a twin-blow. The first one came from the gau-rakshaks (self-styled cow protectors). And just when the threat from them was seemingly ebbing, thanks to the dressing down from the Prime Minister himself, we have been delivered a fatal one from notebandi (demonetisation)”, complains Mehar Singh. This trader from Rampur Kaleran village in Bassi Pathana tehsil of Fatehgarh Sahib district, hardly a month back, saw his vehicles transporting 30 heifers to Uttarakhand being impounded by gau-rakshaks. He managed to retrieve them with police intervention – but only after shelling out Rs 15,000.
What remains to be seen is the impact all this could have on India’s milk production. To the extent this takes place, forcing large-scale import of milk powder and butter oil in the days to come, it could well be an unintended outcome of gau-rakshak vigilantism and notebandi.
Written by Partha Sarathi Biswas | Loni (maharashtra) | Published:January 5, 2017 12:49 am
http://indianexpress.com/article/in...ttle-market-loni-maharashtra-farmers-4459264/
The cattle market at Loni, Maharashtra. (Source: Express photo by Partha Sarathi Biswas)
For Munnabhai Jaghirdar, October-January is when business is brisk, with farmers flush with cash from sale of their kharif crop and spending this money also on purchase of cows – which is what this trader at the Loni cattle market in Ahmednagar district’s Rahata taluka deals in. For farmers, this is an opportune time to buy because the winter and spring months coincide with milk production from animals, too, peaking. As more milk flows from their udders, the faster is the payback on investment; this is simple economics.
The cattle trade is wholly in cash. Kamleshbhai Patel, a farmer from Vaghaldhara village in Gujarat’s Valsad district, has travelled over 200 km to the Loni market. “We had good rains this year. People in my village alone planned to purchase roughly 50 animals. But since nobody had enough cash and the traders here don’t take cheques, we ended up buying only five”, he says.
Vipulbhai Chaudhary from Dena village of Vadodara had to similarly return empty-handed, after his repeated attempts to get traders at Loni to accept cheque payment failed. Manojbhai Patel, whose village of Balwada in Navsari district’s Chikhli taluka is 250 km from Loni, has also been unsuccessful in acquiring new animals, which he always does at this time. “My milk payments have been deposited in my bank account. But given the cash crunch and long queues, I’ve been unable to draw money to pay the cattle traders”, he complains.
“Suppose these bounce, what would we, then, do?”, is the response of Bhikan Dagdu Pathan, a trader at Loni, when asked why he is unwilling to accept cheques. “We have always done this business in cash. Most of us don’t even know the way banks work”, claims Vikhan Bhailam, a fellow trader.
Farmers and traders at the cattle mandi in Loni. (Source: Express photo by Partha Sarathi Biswas)
There is a vibrant trade linking Loni’s cattle market to dairy farmers of Gujarat, having primarily to do with the strong milk cooperative movement in that state. The remunerative milk prices given by dairies make it worthwhile for Gujarat’s farmers to invest in high-yielding crossbred animals. Since these farmers want practically ready-to-milk animals whose produce can be straightaway sold to unions affiliated to Amul – the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation – it has spawned a complementary business of calf-rearing in states like Maharashtra and Punjab (see separate story). The latter breeder-farmers, in turn, supply mature milch animals to their Gujarat counterparts through traders like Pathan and Bhailam.
“We source animals from farmers in Pune, Ahmednagar, Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur, and bring these to Loni. Thanks to the good road connectivity from Surat, Ahmedabad or Mehsana, the Gujarat farmers come here to buy directly from us. The animals travel back with the farmers in their trucks”, explains Pathan.
That trade has, however, been a casualty of demonetisation. With cash-strapped farmers in no position to make purchases, two-year-old cows capable of giving 20 litres milk daily are currently selling at an average of Rs 65,000, as against Rs 80,000 or so prior to demonetisation.
“Ordinarily, we would have expected prices to go up this time. The good rains and improved fodder availability should have triggered higher animal demand from farmers. Instead, we are seeing lower prices and hardly any purchases”, points out Mote.
The declining investment in new animals by farmers – for reasons unrelated to demand – is ironically happening even with milk shortages developing, following two consecutive drought years. Replenishment of dairy stock by farmers at this time is important, especially to help maintain milk output in the ‘lean’ summer months when production by animals tends to fall in the natural course.
The Kolhapur District Cooperative Milk Producers Union, which markets dairy products under the ‘Gukul’ brand, only on December 31, raised its procurement price for cow milk containing 3.5 per cent fat and 8.5 per cent SNF (solids-not-fat) from Rs 22.80 to Rs 24 per litre. Earlier, on December 27, the Maharashtra government-owned Aarey Dairy revised upwards the purchase price for the same quality of milk at its Worli plant in Mumbai from Rs 21.25 to Rs 22.50 a litre.
“Prices are likely to go up further in the coming weeks, as the effects of lower production catches up”, warns Dashrath Shrirang Mane, chairman of the Pune-based Indapur Dairy and Milk Products Ltd. His company, which is Maharashtra’s biggest private dairy and sells under the ‘Sonai’ brand, is currently processing 10 lakh litres per day of milk. Last year, at the same time, it was handling 22 lakh litres daily.
Written by Anju Agnihotri Chaba | Jalandhar | Published:January 5, 2017 1:03 am
Cattle breeder-farmer Sukhjinder Singh Gumman at his 150-cow dairy farm near Batala, Punjab. (Source: Express Photo)
When farmers have no hard cash with which to buy things – in this case, cattle – the impact isn’t just on themselves. It’s also on other farmers – those in the business of breeding and supplying the same animals, ready to be milked by the former lot. Nowhere is the above special cash crunch-imposed crisis more apparent than in Punjab, India’s No. 1 cow breeding state that supplies an estimated 3 lakh animals – mostly Holstein Friesian crossbreds – worth Rs 2,400-2,500 crore annually to other states. A third of it goes to Gujarat alone, with Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh accounting for the rest.
This entire business – of cows that are reared in Punjab, milked in Gujarat and whose produce comes back for sale, including in Delhi and other northern markets – has been hit by the Narendra Modi government’s November 8 decision to demonetise all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination currency notes.
Punjab has some 6,500 dairy farmers owning anywhere from 10 to 500 animals each, and also into rearing of cows ‘ready to sell’ for others to milk. These breeder-farmers are today faced with a sudden demand collapse – sales have plunged to half their levels two months ago – and lower prices for their animals. According to them, freshly-calved two-year-old Holstein cows that are ready for milking, and can give 7,500-8,000 litres over a ten-month lactation cycle, are now selling at Rs 80,000-90,000, compared to Rs 1-1.2 lakh before demonetisation happened. Prices of 18-month-old pregnant heifers have, likewise, fallen from Rs 80,000-90,000 to Rs 60,000-65,000.
“I cannot be selling at these rates, which will just about cover my rearing costs”, notes Jaswinder Singh, who has a 60-animals farm at Gujarpur Khurd village in Banga tehsil of Nawanshahr district and sells 10-12 cows every year. Singh had 10 cows that he was supposed to sell in December, but couldn’t “because no trader came to me and even the ones whom I have contacted say there’s no cash with farmers in other states, who are our ultimate buyers”. He is now left with no option, but to sell the milk from the ‘ready to sell’ cows, which can at least take care of their rearing expenses.
Harbans Singh, too, is stranded with an equal number of cows bred for sale purposes. “I will wait for two more months for prices to improve. Traders have also advised me to hold on till cash returns to the market”, says this 40-animals dairy unit farmer from Kathgarh village in Nawanshahr’s Balachaur tehsil.
“It’s strange that milk prices are rising, but the rates for our animals are falling. I don’t see milk prices going down because there is a real supply problem that is already evident. At some point, cow prices will also have to catch up and we are living on that hope”, points out Balvir Singh, general secretary of the Ludhiana-based Progressive Dairy Farmers’ Association, who operates a 50-cows dairy farm at Udhowal village in Nawanshahr.
Amarjit Singh, a cattle trader from Chimna village in Ludhiana’s Jagraon tehsil, pegs the total rearing cost for a two-year-old cow ready for milking at Rs 80,000-85,000. “Farmers normally earn a profit of between Rs 10,000 and Rs 30,000 per cow. That, however, is ruled out at the current prices”, he admits. While there are buyers willing to pay higher rates against cheque payments, breeders are unwilling to accept these. “What if these bounce is what they tell me and I have no answer to that”, he adds.
“For us, this is a twin-blow. The first one came from the gau-rakshaks (self-styled cow protectors). And just when the threat from them was seemingly ebbing, thanks to the dressing down from the Prime Minister himself, we have been delivered a fatal one from notebandi (demonetisation)”, complains Mehar Singh. This trader from Rampur Kaleran village in Bassi Pathana tehsil of Fatehgarh Sahib district, hardly a month back, saw his vehicles transporting 30 heifers to Uttarakhand being impounded by gau-rakshaks. He managed to retrieve them with police intervention – but only after shelling out Rs 15,000.
What remains to be seen is the impact all this could have on India’s milk production. To the extent this takes place, forcing large-scale import of milk powder and butter oil in the days to come, it could well be an unintended outcome of gau-rakshak vigilantism and notebandi.
Written by Partha Sarathi Biswas | Loni (maharashtra) | Published:January 5, 2017 12:49 am
http://indianexpress.com/article/in...ttle-market-loni-maharashtra-farmers-4459264/
The cattle market at Loni, Maharashtra. (Source: Express photo by Partha Sarathi Biswas)
For Munnabhai Jaghirdar, October-January is when business is brisk, with farmers flush with cash from sale of their kharif crop and spending this money also on purchase of cows – which is what this trader at the Loni cattle market in Ahmednagar district’s Rahata taluka deals in. For farmers, this is an opportune time to buy because the winter and spring months coincide with milk production from animals, too, peaking. As more milk flows from their udders, the faster is the payback on investment; this is simple economics.
The cattle trade is wholly in cash. Kamleshbhai Patel, a farmer from Vaghaldhara village in Gujarat’s Valsad district, has travelled over 200 km to the Loni market. “We had good rains this year. People in my village alone planned to purchase roughly 50 animals. But since nobody had enough cash and the traders here don’t take cheques, we ended up buying only five”, he says.
Vipulbhai Chaudhary from Dena village of Vadodara had to similarly return empty-handed, after his repeated attempts to get traders at Loni to accept cheque payment failed. Manojbhai Patel, whose village of Balwada in Navsari district’s Chikhli taluka is 250 km from Loni, has also been unsuccessful in acquiring new animals, which he always does at this time. “My milk payments have been deposited in my bank account. But given the cash crunch and long queues, I’ve been unable to draw money to pay the cattle traders”, he complains.
“Suppose these bounce, what would we, then, do?”, is the response of Bhikan Dagdu Pathan, a trader at Loni, when asked why he is unwilling to accept cheques. “We have always done this business in cash. Most of us don’t even know the way banks work”, claims Vikhan Bhailam, a fellow trader.
Farmers and traders at the cattle mandi in Loni. (Source: Express photo by Partha Sarathi Biswas)
There is a vibrant trade linking Loni’s cattle market to dairy farmers of Gujarat, having primarily to do with the strong milk cooperative movement in that state. The remunerative milk prices given by dairies make it worthwhile for Gujarat’s farmers to invest in high-yielding crossbred animals. Since these farmers want practically ready-to-milk animals whose produce can be straightaway sold to unions affiliated to Amul – the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation – it has spawned a complementary business of calf-rearing in states like Maharashtra and Punjab (see separate story). The latter breeder-farmers, in turn, supply mature milch animals to their Gujarat counterparts through traders like Pathan and Bhailam.
“We source animals from farmers in Pune, Ahmednagar, Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur, and bring these to Loni. Thanks to the good road connectivity from Surat, Ahmedabad or Mehsana, the Gujarat farmers come here to buy directly from us. The animals travel back with the farmers in their trucks”, explains Pathan.
That trade has, however, been a casualty of demonetisation. With cash-strapped farmers in no position to make purchases, two-year-old cows capable of giving 20 litres milk daily are currently selling at an average of Rs 65,000, as against Rs 80,000 or so prior to demonetisation.
“Ordinarily, we would have expected prices to go up this time. The good rains and improved fodder availability should have triggered higher animal demand from farmers. Instead, we are seeing lower prices and hardly any purchases”, points out Mote.
The declining investment in new animals by farmers – for reasons unrelated to demand – is ironically happening even with milk shortages developing, following two consecutive drought years. Replenishment of dairy stock by farmers at this time is important, especially to help maintain milk output in the ‘lean’ summer months when production by animals tends to fall in the natural course.
The Kolhapur District Cooperative Milk Producers Union, which markets dairy products under the ‘Gukul’ brand, only on December 31, raised its procurement price for cow milk containing 3.5 per cent fat and 8.5 per cent SNF (solids-not-fat) from Rs 22.80 to Rs 24 per litre. Earlier, on December 27, the Maharashtra government-owned Aarey Dairy revised upwards the purchase price for the same quality of milk at its Worli plant in Mumbai from Rs 21.25 to Rs 22.50 a litre.
“Prices are likely to go up further in the coming weeks, as the effects of lower production catches up”, warns Dashrath Shrirang Mane, chairman of the Pune-based Indapur Dairy and Milk Products Ltd. His company, which is Maharashtra’s biggest private dairy and sells under the ‘Sonai’ brand, is currently processing 10 lakh litres per day of milk. Last year, at the same time, it was handling 22 lakh litres daily.
