The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which crossed the annual turnover of Rs 20,000 crore, has requested the Central government to control the imports of dairy products from European nations, New Zealand and Australia to safeguard the self-sufficiency of the dairy sector in the country.

R S Sodhi, Managing Director of GCMMF, which sells Amul brand of milk products, today noted that it was the propaganda by the milk producing nations to dump their surplus dairy products into Indian market amid falling international prices. "In New Zealand alone, milk price to farmers has declined by 40 per cent in last one year. Similarly across Europe, farm-gate milk prices have declined by 18 per cent to 20 per cent in one year alone. Dairy farmers in US have also seen their farm-gate milk prices drop by 15- 19 per cent in the same period," said Sodhi.

"In order to dump their surplus stocks of dairy commodities, these countries are lobbying hard for access to Indian dairy market through bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations," Sodhi stated adding that "We request our policy makers to ensure that dairy products are completely kept out of the ambit of FTAs with major dairy exporting nations."

Notably, in 2014-15 Amul's revenue growth rate took a beating from 32 per cent growth in 2013-14 to 14 per cent now.

Addressing the 41st annual general meeting of the milk federation, the chairman, Jethabhai Patel informed that GCMMF achieved turnover of Rs 20,733 crore for fiscal 2014-15, up from Rs 18,143 crore last year. The growth in 2014-15 was even slower than the cumulative average growth rate (CAGR) of 21 per cent in past five years.

Fall in import demand for dairy products especially in China and higher production in major exporting countries has caused a major meltdown in global prices of dairy commodities in last one year.

This was also reflected in the milk procurement prices in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and EU nations, which are heavily dependent on dairy exports. "No duty concessions and no GI protection on dairy products should be given to countries such as Australia, New Zealand and EU. These steps will go a long way towards ensuring that our nation’s self sufficiency in dairy sector is maintained in future and our food-security is safeguarded with respect to milk and dairy products," Sodhi said.