Tech to trigger White Revolution 4.0 in Indian dairy sector
Indian dairy is an exemplary example to the world on its growth journey from being a milk deficient country to becoming the global leader in milk production. This is all thanks to the great work done, not just by Dr Verghese Kurien, the father of India’s white revolution, but also of successive generations of dairy leaders who took his legacy to greater heights. The contributions of major dairy cooperatives like Amul, Nandini, Sudha, Aavin etc, along with initiatives by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has empowered dairy farmers across the country. Private dairy companies have also made a significant contribution to the Indian dairy sector and broadened consumer choice in dairy products.
India contributes 22 per cent of the total milk produced in the world, yet, lacks in farm productivity, milk quality and farmer profitability in several parts of the country.
A Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) study has revealed that one in three Indians are drinking milk that falls short in one or more quality parameters. When Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was introduced in India, there was a pushback from several sections of the Indian dairy sector. What we can infer from this is that even though the Indian dairy sector is the largest in the world in terms of milk production, number of bovine animals and farmers; to benefit from such deals, we need to effectively resolve the challenges at home.
An ambitious vision for 2030, would be to make India a true global leader in all aspects of dairying. The white revolution led by Dr Kurien, solved the production problem. We need a second white revolution to fix the challenges in productivity, quality and farmer profitability.
But unlike the first, this one will be powered by technology - white revolution 4.0.
With the rapid expansion of dairy digitisation and future tech innovations, India will be able to solve the compelling challenges in its dairy value chain at scale. Future tech like Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud technology, big data analytics and computer vision are revolutionising how things work and will play a major role in shaping the future. The food and beverage industry was slow to pick up on the digitisation trend but had warmed up to it even before the pandemic. The pandemic served to impress the necessity for digital technology for the continuation of Business As Usual. Hence, the near future is likely to witness the digitisation of legacy systems and higher automation to enable remote real-time monitoring and operations. Dairy 4.0 is expected to have deep penetration into the dairy value chain starting right from the farm. Several innovative use cases for technology exist that can effectively and efficiently solve pressing challenges in the dairy industry affordably.
Connected Farms & Smart Milk Collection Centers
Poor farm productivity, lack of timely access to financial and extension services are key challenges faced by smallholder farmers in several parts of India. Effectively resolving these issues will significantly boost their profitability and help them advance as dairy entrepreneurs. From ‘Fitbit’ for cows that track animal activity data to accurately detect heat and illness to computer vision powered body imaging to detect mastitis and lameness, the use cases are vast and can boost the profitability of farmers by increasing productivity, milk quality and enabling premium market linkage. Digitising animal health data and democratizing it through blockchain technology can help veterinarians react quickly to any livestock epidemic outbreak. Facial recognition for cattle holds much promise to increase cattle insurance penetration and cover more farmers from risks. Stellapps had developed mooon, cattle health monitoring and herd management solution and mooid cattle facial recognition solution to enable effective farm management and extension of cattle insurance respectively.
Empowering smallholder farmers with technology will help connect several small and marginal farms to virtually aggregate into a mega farm to reach economies of scale. Access to the right information and the right services at the right time is key to the economic empowerment of farmers. Necessary services can be easily provided to farmers through platforms that leverage ecosystem partnerships with veterinary services, cattle nutrition providers, pharmaceuticals and financial institutions at a milk collection centre hooked to the cloud. Farmers can choose from a virtual marketplace replete with product and service options and pay by simply pouring milk at a smart collection centre.
Financial Inclusion through data-led Fintech solutions
The advent of Fintech has revolutionized not just the financial industry but how we carry out financial transactions every day. Though the uptake of digital services has exponentially increased in recent years in urban centres, this trend has not hit our villages. But Fintech can quickly turn the tables for use of digital financial services in rural areas. For example, by automating milk payments to farmers and enabling direct farmer payments, not only are we creating cost and money savings for the dairy companies but also plugging leakages and ensuring transparent payments for farmers. The quick adoption of Stellapps moopay Fintech services and the positive feedback from farmers for its digital payments, credit and cash-out services have bolstered our belief in the power of Fintech to deeply impact farmers.
We can create better creditworthiness assessment models by capturing previously unrecorded income transactions for farmers. Quick and reliable farmer credit scores will incentivise financial institutions to lend to farmers. Increased access to formal credit will help the farmer invest in her farm size and mechanisation and thus pave the way for their transition to dairy entrepreneurs. We have seen this at play when Stellapps’ mooscore, an alternative credit score based on milk pouring data was introduced. More than 15 financial institutions have partnered with moopay and have been extending credit to farmers based on their mooscores.
Tracing milk back to healthy cows
Imagine being able to scan a QR code of a 2030 version of a QR code and being able to trace milk back to healthy cows it was milked from. Traceability is an important aspect for the emerging pool of health and quality-conscious consumers.
Technology plays a vital role in ensuring food safety by integrating various nodes of the supply chain and enabling real-time monitoring. Digitisation of cattle health records can help alert milk collection centre agents of possible antibiotic contamination and ensure food safety. IOT technology is already being used to automate milk collection, monitor milk transport and chilling in real-time at scale by most dairy processing companies and it is expected to be the norm by 2030.
Stellapps is touching 11.5 million litres of milk every day and impacting 2.6 million farmers, 1 million cattle in about 35,000 Indian villages through its solutions. This scale is proof of the potential of technology to bring significant value to each stakeholder in the dairy sector especially the smallholder farmer.