Some fodder for thought

Seldom in the past have the prices of milk risen so frequently and so steeply as in the past one year or so. Most of the large milk dealers, including Mother Dairy, Amul, and other cooperative and private-sector enterprises, have hiked the retail rates of milk by more than Rs 10 a litre in multiple tranches since the beginning of 2022. Dairy experts do not rule out further spikes in prices in the ensuing summer months when the milk yield of animals normally dips due to heat stress and the reduced availability of green fodder while the demand for milk products like Dahi, Lassi and ice cream shoots up. In fact, it would not be surprising if India, the world’s largest producer of milk, has to resort to imports to meet the elevated summer demand.