ABSTRACT
178The research study in this chapter aimed to: examine milk production, its consumption and disposal pattern in different categories of farms, study the factors affecting marketed surplus of milk, price behavior and price structure of milk in Haryana, and to work out the comparative efficiency of the private and cooperative sector milk plants.
This study revealed that the number of milch animals in a household increased with the increase in the size of land holding, thereby increasing the total daily milk production with increase in the size of farm. On an average, a farmer was producing 17.67 liters of milk per day. The average milk produced on a large producer-seller farm was almost three times more than the small milk producers. On an average, 31.07% of the total milk production on the selected farms was retained in the family for consumption in fluid form or after converting it into milk products. Average daily per capita consumption of milk on the selected farms was 646 g, which was about 20% more than the estimated daily milk availability of 539 g in Haryana, including all sections of the population. The per capita daily consumption of milk varied from 487 g for the small milk producers to 763 g on the large farms.
The marketed surplus of milk was 68.93% of the total quantity of milk produced on an average farm. The percentage of marketed surplus to the total milk production did not indicate any relationship with the size of producer-sellers. Functional analysis showed that all the explanatory variables included in the study explained more than 90% variation in marketed surplus of milk. Regression coefficients of per capita milk production (X1) and number of animals with milk (X4) were found to have positive and significant effects on marketed surplus of milk on all the categories of households as well as for pooled data. However, the coefficient for per capita milk consumption (X2) variable had a negative influence in all the three categories. The coefficient of price of milk per liter (X3) was positive for all the farm sizes, but not significant for large farm category. This indicated that the price of milk per liter did not influence much the marketed surplus of milk on large farms.
The study further showed that the average milk price increased throughout the period from the year 1979 to 1991 in all the three selected districts of Haryana due to increase in the general price level. The milk prices were abnormally high in the year 1987 as it was a drought year. The 179coefficient of variation (CV) giving month to month variation in prices of milk within each year was relatively higher in 1987 in all the districts. The milk prices ruled the highest in Jind among selected districts. This district also experienced maximum relative increase in milk prices due to lower milk production and supply in Jind district.
The monthly price indices of milk obtained through ratio to moving average method were relatively higher during summer months and lower during winter months. The trends and growth rates in milk prices estimated through exponential form showed wide variations across various districts. The highest annual compound growth rate (CGR) of 9.21% in milk price was observed in Jind, followed by Kurukshetra (8.87%) and Faridabad (8.54%). The highest CGR in Jind district is due to lower milk production, which is further 206due to inadequate availability of feeds and fodder.
The results of the study on the structure of milk prices indicated that on the whole, out of the total marketed surplus, 39.25, 41.95, 13.63, and 5.17% were channelized through milk vendors, milk plant, halwai, and consumers, respectively. There was direct relationship between marketing costs and the length of the channels. The most efficient channel was the producer-consumers in which both the producers and the consumers were benefitted.
Milk plants had the highest marketing cost of 259.64 Rs./100 kg of milk, while the marketing cost was minimum (Rs.94.36/100 kg) in channel I (producer-milk vendor-consumer). It was found that both the selected milk plants in the cooperative sector were using less than 50% of their installed capacity, while the milk plant in private sector was using about 72% of its installed capacity. From the cost structure of the milk plants, it is clear that the milk plant in private sector was spending more on processing of milk as compared to milk plants in cooperative sector, because of manufacturing of high value products. The break-even analysis showed that the break-even quantity for Pehowa, Jind, and Ballabgarh milk plants were 43.675, 17.717, and 20.013 million kg of milk per annum.
