Talk:Dairy in India/Archive 1

Pic?
A high-quality pic would be great for the lede, but I've had trouble finding one. The one here is really good, but there's very little information about it. The Flickr page says it's in Tamil Nadu, but that's not super helpful … Any thoughts? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 14:50, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It would be nice to have an image like that in the lede, representing the significant amount of smallholder dairy producers. In regards to that particular image, we'd have to obtain a copyright release from the image owner, and there is perhaps an issue in regards to safeguarding. The two LPs feature quite prominently in the image and i was able to run the number plate of the tractor through the public database and get the owner's name and the general area. Regards, Zindor (talk) 16:15, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Woah, that's some excellent sleuthing! In the meantime I put some other pics in the article—mostly just added the prettiest pictures of cow-related things I could find …… AleatoryPonderings (talk) 16:18, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * They are great pictures. The lede one from the LACMA museum in particular. I wish someone had told me that museum existed, i used to live in that neck of the woods and would have definitely visited. Zindor (talk) 16:49, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on article improvements
I'm watching an interesting video on the industry. Some good pointers in it. Operation Flood seems to be a major moment in the industry, so we could could have a section on that. Zindor (talk) 01:56, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Just dropped in a bit on that :) AleatoryPonderings (talk) 02:07, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Great, thank you. I imagine you're already well ahead of the rest of us on drafting content for this. I'm excited by the scope of this article but it's also gone 3am here and i should really be sleeping. Apparently "India ranks first among the world’s milk producing Nations since 1998 and has the largest bovine population in the World.". Some facts like that would look sweet in the lede although it probably wouldn't do any harm if we checked a statement like that against other RS who are more inclined to be neutral on the subject. Zindor (talk) 02:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I believe there's scope for some content on dairy imports and exports. There's a USDA analysis here that among other things talks about an effective prohibition on U.S dairy products being imported into India because the animals involved in the process have been fed on other ruminants.

Until at least recently India had a ban on dairy products (and related downstream products like chocolate) from China. Source: here.

I'm sure i'm just scraping the surface of this. I'll try and get some prose put together but do let me know if you're already working on this and i'll dig elsewhere. Regards, Zindor (talk) 16:45, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and add! I'm leaving the article be for the moment, I think, so feel free to drop in whatever; looks like has also finished their current round of edits, so we can cede the floor to you :) AleatoryPonderings (talk) 16:53, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time finding a source that covers offerings of milk in the practice of Hinduism, in a generic non-specific sense. I've found plenty of mentions about the Ganesha drinking milk miracle but i'd like to be able to make a blanket statement about milk offerings, or milk being poured on lingams etc.

This image from Commons shows what i'd like to explain in the article:




 * Agnihotra seems decently well-sourced—does that help at all? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 02:53, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, i'll look into it. Zindor (talk) 13:15, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Largest producer etc
I've found a recent livemint article that makes the statement about being the largest producer and consumer, but i've also found this article by the Economic Times which makes a different comparison, and a similar parrot by LiveMint.

There seems to be two ways the sources are assessing this, comparing India against individual countries, or comparing India against conglomerates such as the European Union.

If we can find a source that states India is world leader, beating the EU, then that would cover the current wording of the DYK. Otherwise the wording would have to be similar to what we currently have in the lede. Zindor (talk) 13:15, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I just left a comment on the DYK nom (before I saw this): there's an FAO publication which says that India had a production of 186k tons in 2018, which is more than that of EU. The Economic Times and Livemint articles are interesting. Awkward since they're also citing a UN publication. SD0001 (talk) 13:24, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks SD0001 for handling the DYK. At a quick glance, something that could use clarification is: are we talking about milk or dairy (or maybe both)? If it's dairy, is there an agreed-upon international standard for what dairy is? It's kind of a vague category in ordinary language, but maybe there's something more specific in the industry. Like is there an ISO standard for "dairy production" or similar? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 13:48, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Cuisine
This article gives a nice overview on dairy in Indian cuisine, and is quite accurate from what I know. Too bad it's marked as "sponsored content", which probably means it can't be used as an RS. Anyway, it gives a lot of pointers on what keywords to search for. SD0001 (talk) 14:23, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Water buffalo milk
This was probably my fault for being overeager to get a pic on the main page for this article, but it looks like the DYK for this article will be talking about water buffalo milk production. I just did a bit of research and it seems like we were relying on some outdated statistics when we first updated this article. As of the most recent round of agricultural statistics, it looks like milk from cows now just overtakes milk from water buffalo in terms of volume per year. I've now added some decent citations to that effect, but I would really like to find some official government statistics detailing the volume of milk from different sources. So I had two questions for you all:
 * 1) Do you know where to find official versions of those statistics/if they're publicly available? I only found secondary reports.
 * 2) Do you think the current hook on the DYK, which currently reads " … that the dairy industry in India, which is the largest in the world, is largely reliant on buffalo milk?", needs to be tweaked to account for the new state of affairs, in which cow milk is actually (just barely) the majority of milk produced? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 14:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I might change the hook to something like " … that just under half of the milk produced in India, whose dairy industry is the largest in the world, comes from water buffaloes"? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 14:48, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

The 3rd page (Page 9 on PDF) of this annual report by the DADF has a piechart detailing the percentage milk contribution by the various types of animal. The data is from 2017-18 but it's the latest report i can find on that site. Zindor (talk) 17:04, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks —that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I noticed it only describes milk from buffaloes, not specifically water buffaloes. I assume there's no other kind of buffalo it might be talking about? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:22, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen any sources that suggest they aren't kinds of water buffalo, and i've had a good look. As you already know, the source doesn't make any specific determination over the type of Buffalo, so 'buffaloes' is the most defensible option. I'm concerned however that our significant North American audience might confuse 'Buffaloes' with 'Bison': piping a wikilink to Bubalus would remedy this confusion, and in my eyes carries a lesser burden-of-proof than the word choice in the text. Zindor (talk) 19:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You read my mind :) AleatoryPonderings (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Exports
The quantity of exports seems to be amazingly variable over the years. Some data I found:


 * 51,421.85 MT or 186.71 USD Million during 2019-20 http://www.apeda.gov.in/apedawebsite/SubHead_Products/Dairy_Products.htm
 * 152,736 tonnes or $404 million between April 2018 and February 2019 https://www.indoasiancommodities.com/2019/04/25/indias-dairy-exports-hit-5-yr-high-of-152736-tonnes-in-april-2018-february-2019/ https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/after-4-yr-slump-dairy-exports-achieve-second-best-show-on-global-deficit-119042401039_1.html
 * 123,877 metric tons (FY 2018-19) https://www.dairyglobal.net/Market-trends/Articles/2019/10/India-126-growth-in-dairy-exports-480318E/
 * CY 2015 NFDM (non-fat dried milk) exports are projected at 75,000 metric tons http://agriexchange.apeda.gov.in/MarketReport/Reports/Dairy_and_Products_Annual_New_Delhi_India_10-15-2014.pdf

The first bullet is included in the article. But the reason for massive decrease from the previous year is unclear. – SD0001  (talk) 10:41, 7 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The high of 2018-2019 was due to government incentives, according to Reuters. There is a remarkable lack of consistency in the figures over the years, but that's probably because India has no actual need to export dairy, so they just capitalize on demand and good prices. Zindor (talk) 15:48, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Animal husbandry in India
Just discovered this article! At the moment, a lot of this article is actually about dairy. The annoying thing is that the information on dairy animals seems to belong in both these articles, resulting in duplication. – SD0001  (talk) 04:10, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Ugh, and it's also partially duplicated in agriculture in India as well. Probably animal husbandry should be merged into one or the other, but it'd be a real mess to figure it out … AleatoryPonderings (talk) 04:19, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I've edited Animal husbandry to put things into sections so that things now look more clear. I think it can serve as a summary-style article covering dairy, poultry, meat production, fisheries, bee-keeping etc. I have not done the research but I guess enough material is available for all this so it shouldn't need a merge. – SD0001  (talk) 07:24, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Notes on improvements needed

 * History: Needs to cover Operation Flood, our Operation Flood article doesn't look impressive.
 * Production: more context and info needed on the cow vs buffalo question. (Buffaloes are more efficient economically as they can be sold for slaughter when become less productive, but not cows because of religion, but people apparently prefer cow milk).   Why the cow is worshipped in Hindutva politics
 * Production: some tables or graphs would be cool?
 * Is the content from ('s source above) in the public domain as a government document? We may be able to copy some of it wholesale and post on Commons if so. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Consumption: can probably expand from Wiley but the content is historical.

Once this is all sorted out, I wonder how close will we be from this being GA-worthy? – SD0001  (talk) 17:02, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Mmmm that would be a good target! I did some GAs ages ago but the criteria seem to have tightened up substantially since then; not familiar with the process now. But I'd be game for a shot once we've addressed the outstanding points. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

The 1957 Copyright Act would suggest that being Indian government work it's not in the public domain until 60 years after publication. That being said, fair use (fair dealing in India) for education should cover us, and making derivatives (our own charts and graphs etc) would arguably be covered too. I've seen Indian RS make their own charts using gov data. Template:Pie chart is handy. On a trivial note, i remember an editor pointed out two years ago that Wikipedia's pie charts are slightly egg-shaped, not circular. Once you see it you'll never un-see it! Zindor (talk) 18:51, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Pie chart looks quite handy! Not sure whether we want to include this in the article, but I made this pie chart for fun. We'll probably need to say what "non-descript" means if we include this. BTW, it doesn't look egg-shaped to me! – SD0001  (talk) 20:29, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I was utterly mystified by "non-descript"—I guess it means "non-indigenous" in context? I'm struggling to see it as egg-shaped too, and now I feel like I need my eyes checked … AleatoryPonderings (talk) 20:34, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok ok, maybe my eyes are wonky. From looking at other sources i've worked out that 'non-descript' means that the buffalo don't fit into any specific well-maintained dairy breed, they are just an unknown mix, and typically produce less milk. It would be like a dairy farm using cows that are a cross between beef cattle and Dairy cattle. Zindor (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I like the pie chart btw, and think you should include it SD0001. Zindor (talk) 20:57, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * My doubt exactly. Every source I've looked at today uses the word "non-descript" without bothering to tell what that means. This site comes closest to giving an explanation. – SD0001  (talk) 21:07, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I boldly added your pie chart to the article, with a cite to the government report. We can add some explanatory footnotes with efn later as to the meaning of "non-descript", but I thought your great work deserved to be in mainspace :) AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:49, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, looks good. – SD0001  (talk) 07:13, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Date format
I've noticed different date formats in the inline citations and it's probably a good idea if we remain consistent per MOS:DATEUNIFY. I don't have any preference, but i saw all-numeric being used so i've been using that. you're the main contributors so it's really up to you to decide on a date format.

Also Aleapond, your new lede is getting popular online, and has already been copied elsewhere. Congrats lol. Regards, Zindor (talk) 19:42, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Omg I'm famous! I'm not from India, but if we're using Indian English (as seems proper and as is currently specified in the template at the top) I imagine we should use whatever format's most common in India. I'd expect that to be dmy, but maybe I'm wrong? I usually just put in use mdy dates or use dmy dates since it automatically flips ISO format dates into whatever format is specified in the template. I think there's a script for converting dates but idk where to find it. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 19:46, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * My bad, i was unaware of the template wizardry automatically fixing it. I was just basing it off the raw wikitext. I'd say you're right about DMY; and there is nothing in MOS:IN to suggest otherwise. Zindor (talk) 20:16, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:US/L is the place to look for scripts. You're probably referring to WP:MOSNUMscript. In India, we always use DD/MM/YY over MM/DD/YY. But when the month is being written fully in words, I don't think there's a national standard. So yeah let's just go for dmy. – SD0001  (talk) 07:16, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Raj era
From the article: "In 1916, a dairy animal census was conducted for the first time by British colonial officials. A report authored in 1937 indicated a sub-optimal rate of milk consumption in the country. It estimated a per capita intake of 7 ounces (200 g) per day (inclusive of all dairy products), which was the lowest among all large dairy countries. Low productivity of dairy animals and widespread poverty were the challenges in increasing dairy production and consumption. Consumption varied by geographic and economic conditions, but was on the whole quite low"

I been thinking for a while about this paragraph. Typically at WP:India we don't trust Raj era sources regarding population data because they either didn't bother to venture out and count people or they were inflating the numbers to cover massive famines, so i don't think per-capita intake measurements or views on optimality would be reliable. User:Sitush is more familiar with these kind of sources. I have a feeling that Wiley, in this instance, might have put too much credence in the dairy animal census.

It's now known today that a large part of the Indian population are actually lactose-intolerant, so maybe the results of the census were intended to stimulate cattle-trade from the British government rather than nourish those who perhaps had a good reason for not having so much dairy in their diet. As a reader i would be more interested in knowing what the Indian populace at the time thought about dairy, than the view of the British colonists.

It's not unknown for me to bark up the wrong tree, so sorry if i'm wrong on this. I also don't mean the above as a criticism of whoever wrote the prose, just of Wiley's choice of source. Thanks, and kind regards as ever. Zindor (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't have an idea of the reliability of the source. But there are no exceptional claims being made. The low per-capita consumption continues to be the case even today in modern India. The claim that it was sub-optimal at that time seems quite natural. Low productivity of dairy animals and widespread poverty... Once again, nothing surprising. Low productivity of dairy animals has been an issue for long after independence, and even today the yield of indigenous breeds are quite low which is why they're being increasingly replaced by cross-breeds. The claim of widespread poverty in pre-independent India is also obviously correct. These factors, coupled with the high population, makes the per-capita consumption understandably low. This isn't surprising. Consumption varied by geographic and economic conditions... Again, this is still true today.
 * I think the sourcing would be a problem if exceptional claims were being made, of which there is none here. Also, the colonial administration being the source is mentioned in the prose. That being said, if you feel like removing the figures or condensing it down to de-emphasise it, by all means go ahead. But I don't think a total removal is warranted as that would cause a chronological gap in the history without good reason, as no other sources appear to be available for this period. At any rate, thanks for bringing this up. – SD0001  (talk) 13:14, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Cross breeding
Per WP:BRD i've reverted the content removal that happened here. The prose was about a significant gov policy which came much chronologically later than the events described in the prose you wrote; it doesn't repeat the same information and it also helps fill in the post-1984 gap that exists in the section. As a straightforward paraphrase of facts, it was a perfectly valid use of a WP:PRIMARY source.

Perhaps you can expand on it rather than remove the sourced content entirely. Regards, Zindor (talk) 12:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * TBH, I didn't realise it wasn't added by me (I thought i must've added it while half asleep lol). Anyway the project was started in 2000 and was for 10 years, which means it would have ended in 2010. Then we ought to be talking about the results of the project rather its objectives. It's better to use a non-primary source as they'd include independent insights about the success of the project, etc. This is about the only book source that talks about this project -- it's brief and doesn't cover the results.
 * Governments make a lot of policies on a lot of things. But if there are no substantial results, they're of significance only for govt reports; not for an encyclopedic article.
 * Anyway, dynamic govt websites should really be the last-resort choice of a source. Book sources, journals, static web sources such as PDFs are preferable. – SD0001  (talk) 19:01, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for engaging in discussion on this, that's a strong point you make about looking at the results, and seeing what independent analysis in secondary sources occurred. I can see how that would create a greater amount of more meaningful content for an article, and give a truer sense of due weight. Also fair point about the potential for the source to be dynamic, i would also have preferred if it was at least dated and saved in a separate format from the HTML. I've reverted myself, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so! Admittedly serious content creation is one of my weaker areas, so please forgive me. Kind regards, Zindor (talk) 19:58, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Anyway, dynamic govt websites should really be the last-resort choice of a source. Book sources, journals, static web sources such as PDFs are preferable. – SD0001  (talk) 19:01, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for engaging in discussion on this, that's a strong point you make about looking at the results, and seeing what independent analysis in secondary sources occurred. I can see how that would create a greater amount of more meaningful content for an article, and give a truer sense of due weight. Also fair point about the potential for the source to be dynamic, i would also have preferred if it was at least dated and saved in a separate format from the HTML. I've reverted myself, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so! Admittedly serious content creation is one of my weaker areas, so please forgive me. Kind regards, Zindor (talk) 19:58, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Lead
We should probably think about beefing up the lead, given the size of the article. I may do it later today, but thought I'd flag in case anyone had any thoughts about how best to do it. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 14:29, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * So much new info lately—thanks everyone! Would be great to drop some highlights of the new additions in the lead, but I haven't kept track of everything new. When someone has a chance, feel free to summarize some of the new content in the lead section. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:46, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I would leave it to the end. It's easier to write the lead when the rest of the article is ready - as you just need to go over it and summarize everything. – SD0001  (talk) 05:58, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Can anyone think of a better opening sentence? Dairy plays a significant part in numerous aspects of Indian society, including cuisine, religion, culture, and the economy. seems rather dull and boring. – SD0001  (talk) 13:26, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Obscure citation error
Does anyone know how to fix the fact that this is currently in Category:CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list? I didn't know what to look for to fix it. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:20, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It's because of  which the citation module confuses as multiple author names 'coz of the commas! –  SD0001  (talk) 17:35, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * but fair enough, it isn't someone' last name, so I thought I'd use the  param for that, but it instead causes categorisation into Category:Pages with citations having redundant parameters. Pretty fun! –  SD0001  (talk) 17:39, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , Ahhh! I changed it to  which I think gets all the same info without the error. Also, is there a way to archive refs/create permalinks en masse? Noticed you'd done that for a few of the refs, but if this is going up for GA we should probably archive the rest if there's an easy way to to do that. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 17:46, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Not that I know of. I didn't create any of those archives (as I have only used books/PDF sources). Maybe  would know about this. –  SD0001  (talk) 17:58, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I've found a conversation about using perma.cc for this purpose, but i don't know if the situation has improved since two years ago. Otherwise i don't know, sorry. Zindor (talk) 21:09, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Aha! I think I just did it with User:InternetArchiveBot. Apparently you can just go to the page history and do it for any page you're interested in de-link-rotting. ( Saw on my watchlist that you'd done this with John Turner—it's a cool trick!) AleatoryPonderings (talk) 23:01, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , I learnt this one recently too :) There are two streams of thought on doing this for all links vs only for rotten links. I just end up doing it for all links. Ktin (talk) 23:18, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , Yeah, I figure all is better too since the whole premise of the thing is that every link will eventually "rot" so one ought to head that off sooner rather than later. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 23:33, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Source
Here's another potentially useful source, in case anyone's interested in having a look. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 21:06, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like a great find for expanding the early history. – SD0001  (talk) 08:11, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like a great find for expanding the early history. – SD0001  (talk) 08:11, 26 September 2020 (UTC)