◊ By Shashi Kumar

Note: To find Organic Brands, Organic Product Suppliers, and Organic Shops in India, buy the Organic Directory 

We seem to be living in an age where despite the incessant conflicts in some parts of the world, there is a surge in awareness around environment and health. The Covid-19 pandemic may have magnified this social leitmotif we now share, but it has been building up for the last couple of decades.

One of the natural outcomes of this increased awareness is the organic food movement that has been growing from strength to strength in recent years. According to Europe-based organic farming think-tank, FiBL, between 2000 and 2021, the global organic market grew from Euro 16 billion to around nearly Euro 137 billion. 

Another recent report by Precedence Research has estimated the global organic food to reach $500 billion by the end of the current decade. Roughly a fifth of the global organic food market comprises dairy, and from a consumption point of view, presumably dominated by milk.

Setting aside a relatively small section of consumers who are vegan or lactose intolerant, a glass of milk has come to be an endearing symbol of nourishment and good health. In India, the quality of milk that we pick off the supermarket shelves, is generally presumed to be of good quality, though even official reports have been challenged on the grounds of the scope of the studies and surveys that produced them. 

By definition, organic milk does not contain antibiotics, synthetic growth hormones or pesticides. While the output (milk) can be easily tested for any of these ‘contaminants’, producing organic milk is plain good science. Starting with the soil that grows the animal feed and what and how we grow the same, it also involves exacting standards for breeding and handling the cows (including managing their life cycle as livestock) and under ideal conditions, milking to packing involves no human touch. This is also ensured by a fully-automated milking and packaging process and quality tests that gives one the confidence of purity and nutrition in every drop of organic milk.

One of the biggest challenges for organic dairy producers (and brands) is their ability to control the quality of the produce at the farm level. India’s stupendous growth in the global dairy sector since the 1960s and its current status as the world’s largest producer of milk (around 24%) was managed through the co-operative movement that is now the economic backbone of the dairy producing regions across India. A similar approach, where milk processing units are blind to how the farmer produces the milk will not work for organic dairy.

Just half a day in our dairy processing plant and R&D facility and the surrounding network of farmer-entrepreneurs in Tiptur in southern Karnataka will offer a very holistic picture of the complex network, systems and processes that it takes to create top grade organic milk and other dairy products. As a signatory to the Good Food Movement, we have created a largely self-sufficient ecosystem that is environmentally positive, socially fair and equitable (to farmers) and delivers the goodness of organic dairy to thousands of customers today.

A glass of organic milk is a symbol of goodness because it comes of near-perfect balance between man, animal and nature. I say, near-perfect because there is always scope to improve, which by the way, is an essential quality of organic agriculture.

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The author is Co-Founder & CEO, Akshayakalpa Organic, one of India’s largest organic milk brands offering milk and milk products free from antibiotics, synthetic additives and chemical pesticide residue. Since 2010, more than 20,000 customers, nature and animal lovers, have visited Akshayakalpa’s Tiptur (Karnataka) farm to observe Akshayakalpa’s flourishing biodiversity hub and state-of-the-art production facility, which processes more than 75,000 litres of milk every day. The organic milk brand boasts a growing list of approximately 50,000 customers across Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.