Principal Investigators: Amlan Das Gupta and Ridhima Gupta (IISER Bhopal)

The project studied the impact of traditional vis a vis modern methods in dairy farming in India on the amount of methane emissions from this sector. India is the second largest emitter of methane from livestock production in the world (Highly potent greenhouse gas). The project aimed at documenting the current as well as the predicted future path of methane emissions from milk in India, taking into account adoption rates of modern emission reducing technologies. The study found India is the biggest producer of milk in the world and home to the highest number of livestock. Methane emissions from maintaining this huge livestock is a concern. It has been pointed out that the Indian milk sector could be reformed to produce the same quantity with a smaller number of animals and less emissions. About three quarters of this milk comes from small dairy farmers who will need to change their production methods if this transformation has to happen. This paper attempts to map the evolution of methane emissions from small dairy farmers in India using micro data to model the farmer’s choice of breed. Non-Indigenous breeds have been known to have higher yields and less emissions for every liter of milk. Our findings suggest that the small dairy farmers in India are likely to adopt indigenous breeds more in the future further increasing emission levels from this sector. The most likely reason is that cattle rearing is seen as a consumption smoothing device and uncertainty in the agricultural sector is likely to increase.