Bücher von Smita Sirohi

With 112.5 mil.t of production in 2009-10, India remains number one milk producer in the world. This sector has been set the target of 5% growth for the period 2007-12 in order to achieve over all agricultural growth of 4%. However, growth rate of this sector has been hovering around 3.7% during 2007-10 due to stagnation in the productivity of dairy aimals. To increase productivity, it is imperative to increase investment. Since, farmers in India are resource poor, lacking own capital to reinvest in dairying, there is a need to provide institutional credit. With this background the present study was conducted in a major state of India. Study found that despite significant contribution of this sector, credit alloted was only 1% of the agricultural credit. Repayment was found to be far lower than crop sector. Requirement of credit was found to be higher for marginal and land less farmers. Study of utilisation pattern revealed that only 36% of dairy credit was used for target activity. Discriminant analysis showed that higher percentage of earning adults in the family, higher income from dairy contributed towards lower repayment.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas emitted from dairy animals. The methane mitigation projects can offer both, environmental and economic benefits as the emissions also imply loss of energy in dairy production. In the recent years, the GHG mitigation activities have intensified under the Kyoto Protocol. Despite of high contribution of dairy animals to the India''s GHG budget, the mitigation efforts in this direction have been lacking. Baseline, the quantum of business-as-usual emissions, is a prerequisite for formulating a mitigation project. This study, covering 13 Indian states in all the geographical regions, attempts to assess the baseline methane emissions in dairy sector using disaggregated data at agro-climatic zone and district level. IPCC Tier II methodology is used for estimating regional methane emissions factors for various types of dairy animals. The study delineates the hot-spots, high carbon credit- low mitigation cost regions, for focusing mitigation activities. The information provided herein can be of use for researchers, policy makers and project proponents for targeting R&D initiatives, planning and designing appropriate mitigation actions for dairy sector.