In India Milk production is dominated by small and marginal land-holding farmers and also by landless labourers who in aggregate own 70% of the national milch animal herd and as the crop production on 78% of the agricultural land still depends on rain, which is prone to both drought and floods, rendering agricultural income is very much uncertain for most of the farmers. Dairying as a subsidiary source of income and occupation, is real relief to most of the farmers in the society. Usually one or two milch animals enable the farmers to generate sufficient income to break the vicious subsistence agricultural-debt cycle.

The Operation Flood which is the successful Indian dairy development programmed has analyzed that how food aid can be utilized as aninvestment in building the type of institutional infrastructure that can bring about national dairy development. Programmes like this, with similar policy orientations, may prove to be appropriate to dairy development in India.