The government has approached WTO to formulate a separate Codex standard for small holding milk producers to safeguard the interests of developing countries. Besides, associations like the Indian Dairy Association (IDA) are making efforts to educate dairy owners regarding the emerging health standards in the developed world.

"The country is following a two-pronged strategy in addressing the problem," said Animesh Banerjee, president of IDA. "While the government is trying to bring changes at the policy level, we are trying to spread awareness among small dairies on how to incorporate the new standards in the productionsystem."

Banerjee pointed out that the previous sanitary standards required milk to be purified at the output level. However, to make the going tough for the developing countries, the developed world has made new standards which have to be incorporated at the production level. "In India, where most dairy owners operate with two to three cows, it is very difficult to adhere to such standards," he said.

The SPS measures require that members must provide necessary evidence to objectively demonstrate to the importing members that the areas from where export is being effected are pest or disease free. Unfortunately, India has not yet promulgated the Animal Diseases Act and therefore stands the risk of facing import restrictions from countries. The European Union (EU) has already put the country under the restricted category and the US is planning to follow the suit.

According to Banerjee, the industry cannot just sit and wait for the government to do something. "We cannot just lament the fact that thegovernment is not paying as much attention to the sector as it should. Instead, we have to take initiatives to make the industry competitive," he said.

The quality assurance system which has got the maximum acceptance the world over is the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system, because it exercises control throughout the food chain, that is from primary production to consumption at all critical steps. It enables a dairy food manufacturing company to move away from the philosophy of end-product testing to preventive approach.

As the Indian dairy industry has been extremely slow in adopting the system, a debate has been generated as to whether India should make the HACCP-based system mandatory as certain other countries had done. Experts feel that India is not ready for it yet. They suggest that application of HACCP system should be made mandatory in phases leading with export-oriented processed food factories followed by licencees of quality mark certifying agencies such as Agmark, BISand others. Certain cooperatives like Mother Dairy and Verka have already adopted the system and Banerjee hopes that others would soon follow.

With milk production in India growing at the rate of 4.4 per cent, the country will soon need to find export markets on a sustainable basis to take care of the surplus milk that would be generated a couple of years from now. Making the country's dairy products competitive in the international market now has to be a part of the government's agenda.