Journalism of Courage
Showing signs of some relief, the Wholesale Price Index-based fodder inflation has declined marginally to 24 per cent in February 2023, which is lower as compared to 29.29 per cent in January, shows an analysis of the official data.
However, the latest fodder inflation is still higher than the figure (11.55 per cent) recorded in February, last year. The elevated fodder prices are a cause of worry as they fuel milk price, which has already seen multiple hikes in the last year.
The prices of fodder, which has a weight of 0.5314 per cent in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), have been rising since November, 2021. The WPI-based fodder inflation had hit its highest ever level of 30.93 per cent in November last year. In December 2022, the fodder inflation figure stood at 30.56 per cent. The high level of fodder inflation is in contrast to the decline in overall WPI inflation, which has come down to over two-year low of 3.85 per cent in February 2023.
The data released by the Office of the Economic Adviser, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) on Tuesday, showed that the rate of inflation for animal feed has come down. The inflation of the “Manufacture of prepared animal feeds”, which has a weight of 0.3563 per cent in the WPI, has declined to 2.01 per cent in February, 2023.
The “Manufacture of prepared animal feeds” category has five items — Gola and similar cattle feed; rice bran extract; soya preparations excluding oil; cotton seed oil cake; and mustard oil cake. Of these five items, the rate of inflation was negative in negative territory for three items — soya preparations excluding oil (-9.11 per cent); cotton seed oil cake (-5.88 per cent); and mustard oil cake (-21.36 per cent) — in the month of February. However, two items — Gola and similar cattle feed (8.43 per cent); and rice bran extract (9.42 per cent) — registered a higher inflation.
The rise in fodder inflation is significant as it increases milk production costs which eventually affect the consumers’ household budgets. In the calendar year 2022, dairy brands such as Amul and Mother Dairy raised their milk prices several times. Besides, the rising fodder prices also hurt families dependent on cattle rearing.
To ease the fodder supply, the government had announced setting up 100 fodder plus Farmer Producers Organisations (FPOs) during 2023-24. Of these, a maximum 16 are planned in Gujarat, followed by Karnataka (11 FPOs), Bihar (9), Kerala (9), and Rajasthan (8).
