The Tech-Driven Solutions have significantly Accelerated the Indian Dairy Operations.

The Indian dairy industry has been drastically benefitted in recent years from adopting tech-driven products, facilities and solutions. Although the traditional dairy operations have been heavily dependent upon manual labour, the adoption of technology by the Indian dairy farm owners has elevated the industry operations toward greater efficiency and reliance. The operational efficiency within the farm has led to more milk production and business growth.
Let’s find out in what ways technological advancement has changed the scenario of the Indian dairy farm industry.

Health tracking devices for the animal

Health issues in cattle reduce productivity. However, with the adoption of animal tracking gadgets, farmers can easily track, monitor and manage the cattle’s health, behaviour, nutrition, pregnancy, milking frequency, milk production anomaly, as well as its activity level effortlessly. Farmers implant these animal tracking devices on their ears, tail, neck or legs, or at any part of the body. Also, these tracking devices help in early diagnoses of medical conditions in the animals, which help farmers get the cattle the right treatment before it’s too late.

Cattle traffic and feed management

It can be an extremely tedious task to bring cattle to the barns in the controlled manner and feed ration in a balanced way. For example, a sick cow may need more nutrition and a different space to recuperate. Thus, the use of tracking devices help farmers group cattle based on their historical background and enable them to give special care to sick cattle and balanced nutrition to all its animals, which seemingly increase the chances of cattle productivity upto 25%.

Milk quality

It’s a fact that milk is a perishable dairy product. It tends to go stale despite treating it with pasteurisation, freezing or other preservation processes. That being said, dairy farmers have seen millions of tons of milk turning stale and going to waste. However, today, with the advent of the new technology, it is now possible to detect the freshness of milk and store it for a longer period. Different technological devices are introduced that inform about the milk’s freshness and enable increasing its shelf life from a few weeks to a few months without changing its taste or nutritional value.

Monitoring supply chain

The Indian dairy supply chain is complex. Its unorganised chain owes its dependency on various factors such as storage, temperature, cold chain availability, weather, shelf life, packaging, etc. However, technological innovation in the realm now ensures timely distribution, smooth cold chain maintenance, etc. It enables supply chain participants to efficiently control the inventory. It is said that the coming years will witness the most cost-effective and energy-efficient cold chain warehouses, pallet shippers and other advanced cooling technologies. Tech development is indeed making its mark in the cold chain infrastructure in India.

E-commerce marketplace

Technology is building a real-time connection between consumers and businesses. On the back end of the process, the seller is linked to the farm owners to ensure the smooth in-flow of milk. More than ever, it has also become easy for the seller to ensure product traceability on both sides of backward and forward linkages. Furthermore, due to technological advancement, dairy producers can obtain doorstep services on their smartphones.

Farm management systems

A dairy farm performs at its best to ensure that all of its activities are running efficiently. Tech-led farm management systems can help in the digitalisation of output and operation processes. Access to smartphones and other advanced tools have given farmers access to wider markets, verifiable knowledge, and other high-quality services that have empowered dairy owners. For example, in the collection and payment of milk, the online payment mode is easing the financial operations wherein the money can be digitally transferred into the farmer’s account, providing them financial independence.

Conclusion

The above mentioned is an inclusive and not exhaustive list of technologies introduced in the Indian dairy industry. The dairy technological revolution has only begun in India, and in no time will it bring the unorganised players into the mainstream.

About the Author

Amol Ghodke is one of the requested consultant in the dairy industry, Since the last 15 years, he has been actively involved in different facets of dairy business such as rendering training, effective branding, potential sales, marketing, etc, for top organizations such as Topfoods-(S.A), Marmum Dairy Farm (Dubai), Awesome Dairy (Mumbai), Sri Surabhi Dairy etc to name a few.