Agriculture and dairy have been the backbone of the Indian economy since ages. Being an agriculture oriented country, there was always a place for dairy animals in the Indian households for ages. The dairy sector though very vast was scattered and each dairy farmer has one or two animals, the milk of which was either self consumed or sold to a very small group of people.
The animal husbandry sector provides a good opportunity for income generation throughout the year as the farmers get an opportunity to sell the milk and meet their monetary needs even during the dry season when agriculture in not possible.
The operation flood, an initiative of Government of India, The setting up of the National Dairy development board changed the scenario in the dairy industry in India and India moved on to be a self sufficient milk producer for being a country faced with scarcity of milk.
The majority of the dairy produce in India is consumed in the country itself and hence there is a huge potential for value addition and over all development in this sector. As per National Dairy Development Board, India is one of the top countries in milk production and Milk production increased from 42 lakh tonnes in 2014-15 to 57.6 lakh tonnes by 2022
As per the statatistics released for 2023 , The total Milk production in the country stands at 230.58 million tonnes during 2022-23 showing an increase in milk production by 3.38% as compared to previous year. The per-capita avaliability of milk is 459 grams per day. The top 5 milk prducing states stand to be Uttar Pradesh (15.72%), Rahasthan (14.44%), Madhya Pradesh (8.73%), Gujarat (7.49%), Andhra Pradesh (6.70%) collectively contributing 53.08% of the total milk production in the country