Dr Elizabeth Yhome
Project Director, NSDCF Ltd, Lerie, Kohima
Dairy Farming holds immense potential to transform our socio economic landscape. Beyond being a source of nutrition, milk and its products can generate employment, strengthen food security and promote organic farming through the use of cow dung and urine as natural fertilizers.
Dairy farming is not just farming activities but a pathway to prosperity. If dedicated Naga entrepreneur activity take up dairy farming on commercial scale and handle personally daily dairy farm management from cleaning, breeding, feeding, milking to marketing they will retain the full profit margin.
At present our traditional dairy farming relies on hired labour from outside state who manage our dairy cow and control the milk marketing process. The local dairy farm owner has no say in milk pricing or milk marketing as such are economic is drain out from our state.
Hence, when local farmers operates and manage their own dairy farms, we can become self reliant. This shift will stimulates our local economic, create local job opportunity avenue for local feed supplies and processing unit and strengthens our food security.
India already has shining example of dairy success. Amul (milk and butter, Gujarat co-operative milk marketing federation) and Mother Dairy (Delhi) a household names across the country, demonstrating the scale and sustainability of co-operative models.
Nagaland can replicates this co-operative models through Nagaland State Dairy Co-operative Federation Ltd. (NSDCF) by forming village level dairy co-operative society. Dairy co-operative empower farmers by ensuring fair and transparent pricing, creating region level brands and encouraging collective participation. These dairy co-operative society can transform the lives of farmers and contribute greatly to our state economic growth.
Dairy farming is more than milk production it's a movement towards empowerment, self reliance and prosperity. With vision, commitment and dairy co-operative spirit Nagaland can script its own many dairy success stories.
