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World Milk Day: 10 interesting facts on milk production

Though most countries mark June 1 as the World Milk Day, some hold the celebrations either around a week before or after this date.

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Pic courtesy: OLRDS

Ever since 2001, when the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations declared June 1 as the World Milk Day, more than 30 countries every year celebrate the day and promote milk as a global food, as well as publicize activities linked to milk and the dairy industry.

Initially, it was late May that was proposed to celebrate the Day, but FAO zeroed on June 1 as some countries, including China, were off the idea since the month already has too many celebrations and hence there was a chance that the importance of the event won’t get its due respect.

Though most countries mark June 1 as the World Milk Day, some hold the celebrations either around a week before or after this date.

Here are 10 interesting facts about milk production:

1. Almost 90% of the world’s total milk requirement comes from cows.

2. Over 6 billion people across the world are milk and dairy products consumers.

3. In 2014, about 789 million tonnes of milk were produced across the world.

4. India is the world’s largest producer of cattle and buffalo milk. It is also the leading exporter of skimmed milk powder.

5. India produced 146.31 million tonnes of milk in 2014-15. Per capita availability of milk in India has increased from 176 grams per day in 1990-91 to 322 grams per day by 2014-15.

6. There are 300 million bovines. India has a total livestock of 512.1 million, including 200 million livestock cattle. There are over 70 million milk producers in the country.

7. In 2014-15, the top milk-producing states in India were – Uttar Pradesh about 25 million tonnes), Rajasthan about 17 million tonnes), Gujarat (about 11 million tonnes), Madhya Pradesh (10 million tonnes) and Punjab (10 million tonnes).

Milk production has witnessed a significant rise in few other states as well. For example Odisha produced nearly 2 million tonne milk in 2014-15 against less than a million tonnes over a decade ago.

8. The USA is the second largest milk producer of the world. It produced 93.5 million tonnes of milk in 2015, followed by China (45 million tonnes) and Pakistan (42 million tonnes).

9. The USA is the world’s largest producer of cow milk. There are 23 milk-producing states in the US. The largest of them being California, Wisconsin, New York, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Texas and Minnesota.

10. Germany became the largest milk producer in in the European Union (EU) in 2015 with a 21.1% share, by producing 29.34 million tonnes of milk.

(Sources: UK-based AHDB Dairy, USDA’S Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN), Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ), India Today, TOI, Wikipedia, EthicalPost)

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