Cow protection hurts dairy farming: PDFA
Members of the Progressive Dairy Farmers Association (PDFA) in Punjab have warned the state government that if it did not resolve their issues, especially related to ban on movement of cows, they would be forced to launch an agitation.
“We are announcing that if the government doesn’t ease off the NOC procedure for breeders till August 10, we will be forced to come out on the roads to protest against them,” said PDFA president Daljit Singh, while addressing news persons here on Monday.
He said due to efforts of PDFA, there was considerable change in the dairy farming sector. “During last decade, dairy farming became an alternative to agricultural farming. Punjab contributes 50% share in commercial dairy farming of the country and the credit for this goes to the farmers of Punjab,” he said.
He alleged that the Punjab government was on verge of destroying dairy farming, which was developed as part of agriculture diversification. Daljit said the state government had created a cow security board “comprising notorious elements along with groups under the name of cow protection with patronage of the administration who beat outside traders and milk producers and loot money and animals from them.”
He added, “At the behest of RSS, the state government, under the policy of promoting indigenous cows is deceiving farmers. Indigenous cow cannot be commercially beneficial. Every year, 3 lakhs cows were sent out of Punjab and milk producers across the state earned revenue of Rs 2,500 crore. But this stopped due to wrong policies of the state. Milk producers are now finding it difficult to payback loans worth of crores.”
“With no increase in milk prices by government, and no help being provided as compared to states like Kerala, Haryana and others, where timely help of Rs 2 to 4 per litre is provided, milk producers in Punjab are facing enormous economic difficulties. Milk producers at least could breed and sell cows for increasing their income. This has also been stopped by government under RSS pressure . The Punjab government ordered ban on selling of cows to other states citing cow slaughter as the reason,” he alleged.
