A Holistic Manure Management Model by Leveraging Dairy Cooperative Network

Abstract

India continues to remain the world’s largest milk producer largely due to the efforts of millions of small and marginal dairy farmers and an efficient dairy value chain established through institutional structures in the form of dairy cooperatives. While the efforts to strengthen dairy value chain are continuing, the potential of dung of dairy animals as a key by-product remains largely unexplored. Animal dung is generally used in India as agriculture input and cooking fuel. Innovation of anaerobic digesters in the last century did provide an option of extracting biogas from dung. At the same time, a proper value addition of bioslurry produced from the biogas does have an immense potential to satisfy fertiliser needs in India. India’s 303 million strong bovine population has the capacity to produce 995 million tonnes of recoverable dung having potential to suffice cooking fuel need of entire rural households, and at the same time can significantly contribute in reducing use of chemical fertilisers by using digestate/slurry as replacement. This article attempts to explore the potential of animal manure as provider of energy and fertiliser. It also deliberates upon the attempt of National Dairy Development Board to establish manure value chain providing remunerative price of animal dung to farmers while satisfying their cooking needs and contributing towards mitigation of adverse environmental impact.