Comparative economics of milk production among different breeds of milch animals in Punjab

The study brought out that the cost of producing a litre of buffalo, crossbred cow and indigenous cow milk was higher on small farms followed by medium and large sized dairy farms. On an average, the net returns per litre of milk in the case of buffalo, crossbred cow and indigenous cow came out to be ‘6.25, ‘5.44 and ‘-2.18, respectively. It may be concluded that it is profitable to keep buffaloes and crossbred cows for milk production as these yield handsome returns while, the returns from rearing indigenous cows were observed to be negative and milk production was found unprofitable due to low productivity and higher net maintenance cost. Further, the cost of milk production and income measures obtained in the study suggested that crossbred cow milk production was relatively more profitable than buffalo and indigenous cow. Thus, sound economic logic exits for persuading the dairy farmers to continue crossbred cow rearing to enhance their incomes.