Yak Milk and Its Products

摘要

Yak (Bos grunniens) is a milk yielding draft animal and exists only at high altitudes since its body physiology is well adapted to those conditions — having larger lungs and heart than cattle found at lower altitudes. For the same reasons, yaks cannot survive at low altitudes and high temperatures found in plains. Ramesha and Battacharya (2008) quoted that there are 14.2 million domesticated yaks in the world, out of which about 13.3 million are in China and 71,000 yaks are in India. As per Vision Document of National Research Centre on Yak, Dirang (Arunachal Pradesh), the latest figure of yak population in India is 83,080 (NRCY, 2013). Yak milk processing is not as well organized as cow milk or buffalo milk processing because of its limited production and demand. One of the reasons for this is because it is expensive to transport yak milk from hilly areas toplains for marketing.