NLDB targets 50% milk requirement by 2015

By Surekha Galagoda

National Livestock Development Board (NLDB) will produce a high quality affordable cattle feed by mid next year.

The Chairman, NLDB Chandrawansa Pathiraja said that experiments are being done and NLDB is confident of introducing the feed by mid next year which will help around 200,000 milk farmers in the country.

Speaking of the NLDB performance, Dr. Pathiraja said that since 2007 the board has been making profits. Last year it was Rs. 43 mn and we are hopeful of exceeding Rs. 60 mn this year.

Upto June NLDB has registered a turnover of Rs. 600 mn and is confident of reaching the one bn mark by end of this year.

He said that since the establishment of NLDB in 1973 the main activity was to collect animals take them to abattoirs and distribute the meat but with Mahinda Chinthanaya the vision of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa, our activities have changed to increasing the milk production in the country to be self-sufficient in milk.

At present NLDB produces 25-27% of the country's milk requirement and this amount is produced by small farmers. To increase the milk production the country needs good cattle breed.

Therefore NLDB has established breeding centres at their farms around the country.

The plan of NLDB is to fulfil 50% of the milk requirement locally by 2015. To achieve this target NLDB needs 150,000 good quality animals. Annually the milk requirement increases by 6% while production is increased by 3% which creates a disparity between the demand and supply.

At present an animal produces around 2.5 litres of milk per day and the NLDB plans to increase it to 20 litres per day and we are confident of achieving this target with the embryo project.

At present the country has four mn school going children and from that 20-25% in every district is suffering from malnutrition. Therefore NLDB has launched a project to distribute the milk produced in the regional farms in the nearby villages.

In addition the fertilizer project launched by NLDB is progressing successfully and we have been able to increase the fertilizer production by 4-5%. The vision of the Government is to move to using organic fertilizer away from chemical fertilizer.

The NLDB owns 10,000 acres of coconut land and NLDB has already started using organic fertilizer in one farm and hope to spread it to other farms next year. Two weeks ago President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave 5000 acres to the NLDB to cultivate maize and now we have 20,000 acres to cultivate maize.

This will help to reduce and finally stop the import of maize which will help save foreign exchange.SEMA Advisor Dr. Ranjith Bandara said that NLDB has been transformed to a profit making venture from a loss making venture without it being privatized in keeping with the vision of the President.