Further Evidence on the Impact of Dairy Development Programme

Development Programme B Bowonder B Das Gupta Sanjeev Gupta S S R Prasad The impact of dairy development on nutrition and income has been a matter of great interest to policy-makers. At the same time it has been a subject of fierce controversy both in popular press as well as academic journals. The proponents of the dairy development programme feel that such. activity does indeed raise the level of income and hence, the nutrition of the rural poor As such the dairy development programme needs to be encouraged through positive government policy. In contrast its critics assert that spread of dairying in rural areas is leading to transfer of items of nutrition from the rural poor to the well-to-do in the urban areas. Even otherwise the contribution of dairy development programmes to incomes in rural areas is marginal.