Budget 2018 – Cow Farmers to Get ‘Kisan Credit Card’ Facility

The Government of India has recognised dairy farming as the ‘farming’ activity and extended facilities of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) to even dairy farmers. This is a significant and welcome step of the Government of India.  There is also good news for dairy industry in the 2018 budget as special corpus for infrastructure development fund is sought to be created. KCC facility will enable the dairy farmers to access credit facility required for day-to-day work. Creation of infrastructure fund is aimed at improving the quality of output.

Even in earlier budgets sufficient fund allocation has been made but unfortunately bulk of the same usually goes to collection and processing and very little is allocated to improve the quality of farms. It is a common scene across the country that the dairy cows and buffaloes are maintained in unhygienic conditions, Animal housing conditions are very poor, the floor is uneven because of which dairy animals have lot of foot related problems. The farmers have no access to extension services to improve feeding practices. The state governments therefore should come out with a scheme to support ‘scientific animal house construction’. Emphasis should be keeping animals ‘loose’ and not tied with provision of feed and water 24 hours. Another area where farmers need infrastructure support is creation of facilities to preserve fodder and feed. Farmers need KCC facility for purchase of ‘milk replacer’, calf starter to push calf growth.  Since the return from calf rearing is longer ‘around 2 years’ in case of cows, KCC facility should be provided to cover this period. Such a scheme will stimulate availability of pregnant heifers and hence will bring down the cost, which is largely due to supply demand gap.

The farmers are looking at the Government to do something concrete for cows and not mere lip service.