In the field of Jaggery production, Barkagaon has its own incompatible identity. And now the farmers are moving towards white revolution by making the block self sufficient in milk production. While milk is being produced on a large scale, the business of khoa, cottage cheese, butter and curd is also growing rapidly. Approximately thousands liters of is produced everyday in this block. According to milk producer Manoj Kumar, 250 to three thousand liters of milk is being export daily to Ranchi and Koderma and at the same time milk consumption in Barkagaon block has also increase. Farmers are earning two lakh rupees quotidian.
Milk is being export to several districts such as Hazaribagh , Ranchi, Tandva, Chatra, Koderma and Ramgarh from Barkagaon. milk is being sold at 45 rupees per liter in cities and 40 rupees per liter in hostels and villages in Barkagaon Tehsil. Farmers are requesting the State Government to set up market for this.
According to milk producers Manoj Kumar, Arun Mahto, Nagendra Kumar and Santosh Kumar, farmers are not getting any benefit from Jharkhand Milk Federation (JMF). The price of milk is reduced to 15-16 rupees per liter after the Solid Not Fat (SNF) reaches 7.9 due to which the producers are forced to bear loss.
Farmers also said that milk producers are not getting the benefit of subsidy from the Government which makes difficult for them to feed the cows and because of this milk production is also being affected. While the Government of Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar grant inducement of four to six rupees per liter to the milk producers, there is no such arrangement from Jharkhand Government.
