The pricing for A2 milk varies between 90 and 150 Rs per litre in NCR.. We recently heard about someone selling at Rs 250 per litre also. We have been doing this for 6 years now, and this pricing left us also a bit baffled.

So we decided to try and delve into the cost components and to arrive at a somewhat reasonable logic for pricing of A2 milk from Desi cows. The factors which define the cost are broadly: 1. Production per cow, 2. Dairy Farms Ethics, Quality of feed/ Location.

1. Production per cow

The white revolution was a great idea.. for its time. The nutritive quality of milk, or the adverse impact of A1 were not really understood, and frankly the priorities were different.

Unfortunately, over the past few decades, even the desi cows with decent milk capacity were crossbred without thought. With the result that the average milk production of our own breeds never really improved.

Today, very few pure Desi cows are available.

The ones which are available, and are pure breed, have very low production as compared to HFs (Holstein Friesians)

The economics of production are very different for Indegenous vs HF (Holstein Friesian) cows.

The feed costs in Desi cows contribute more towards body maintenance, rather than milk production. Higher milk production per cow in HF means lesser feed cost per litre. The difference in production cost gets compounded further with manpower, infrastructure and other costs.

There are primarily 4-6 milch breeds in India right now – Sahiwal, Gir, Rathi, Tharparkar and to some extent Kankrej and Haryana. The average production of these milch breeds also is very less.

The resurgence of Desi cow breeding at farmer level has started very recently, and hopefully we will start seeing the results in productivity over the next decade.

What we lost to white revolution!

2. Ethics in Dairying

Are the calves fed mothers milk? Is enough space given to cows to roam around or are they confined to stalls? What is done with the male calves?

The questions as well as their cost implications are fairly intuitive.

Desi cows are emotional and do not milk without their calves. At MooLaLa, we estimate that for a 1800 litres annual lactation cow, approx. 30-35% of the milk goes to the calf.

Over and above this we spend 25% of our cost on breeding & upbringing of our next generation of pure breed heifers.

The HFs are sort of milking factories and in most of the dairies, the calves are weaned away within a week, an fed cheaper alternatives like milk replacers. There are, of course, some sad stories about male calves being starved to death immediately so nothing is to be spent on their upkeep.

3. Quality of Feed/ location

The natural diet of cows is green fodder. The right mix of legumes (rich in proteins) and grasses (rich in energy) work best. However the most important thing is the quality & mineral content of the soil. Most farms around urban areas focus more on concentrated grain feed as cost of growing green fodder is high.

The milk nutritive quality as well as taste are greatly enhanced by quality green fodder.

Though not directly linked to A1 vs A2 pricing, an urban dairy farm incurs higher costs, not just in manpower, infra and delivery, but also in feed costs.

It is our estimate that the ideal Ex farm (pre-delivery) pricing for pure Desi cow A2 milk should be 200 – 250% of A1 milk (Ex Farm) (considering just production capacity and calf milk consumption). How much exactly.. would depend on the farm’s practices and most importantly, on the quality of cows.

All of this assuming that the milk is genuinely from pure desi cows, not crossbred or HF cows!

Why is A2 Desi cow milk more expensive