Indian Diary - Milk Production, Quality Control and Milk Fat Measurement in India

Dear all

I am glad to write from India. I will summarize my journey as it unfolds in this blog:

I am in the process of visiting structured dairy coop as well as unorganized private sector milk production line. I am in the state of MP (Madhya Pradesh) which has its own cooperative society (most states have their own). The cooperative structure, I have learned, works in 3 tiers: 

1. Village Cooperative (Coop) = a collection shop in villages where farmers deposit milk and get a payment slip based on fat, Lactometer reading and Volume every time they come; 

1b. Chilling centre = A place to chill milk and do some processing in between the two stages, mostly if (a) Village is very far from city so taking non-chilled milk across might risk spoiling; (b) there is huge demand for certain products in the local area itself, in which case milk might be chilled and sold locally before going to next stage.

2. District (Distt) level processing Plant = Place where milk from surrounding coops and chilling centres comes, gets pasteurized, standardized, packaged and excess changed in to products - butter, buttermilk, ghee (clarified butter), lassi (sweetened curd drink), shreekhand (sweetened yoghurt  dish), curd, milk powder.

For long distance transport/ export of milk to other states (MP exports to Delhi and Mumbai where demand is huge), milk powder and butter are transported, which are later mixed to prepare milk back.

3. State level federation office (like a corporate head office) and National Level Dairy Federation  (http://www.indiadairy.coop).