Large scale dairy farms to assist small farmers

MILCO, the biggest fresh milk buyer in the country plans to make the country self sufficient in milk within the next 3-4 years, under the Mahinda Chinthana Idiri Dakma,” said Chairman MILCO Sunil Wickramasinghe. Minister Arumugam Thondaman has given a clear direction to ensure that we have a well focused plan in place to achieve this objective.

MILCO has invited investors to start large farms in the country and as a response to our invitation six investors have already expressed their interest to invest in dairy faming in the country,” he said.

The only possible way to uplift our rural dairy farmer is to produce the required fresh milk to make our country self sufficient in fresh milk and to stop imports which cost the government a colossal amount of foreign currency is for our dairy farmers to take up to commercial farming to have a reasonable return on their efforts. Milco has lined up many supporting activities in this direction and to support our farmers we need to invite farmers from the developed world to establish large scale dairy farms which will act as the nuclears to our small farmers.

He said that investors can come as a public private partnership or other model which is beneficial to both parties. Many farmers from the best milk producing countries in the world have already expressed their interest to come almost immediately to establish large scale dairy farms.

The large farms will be equipped with the latest technology and are in a position to support the small farms with good quality animal breeds and new varieties of grass. All these will support to produce a very high quality fresh milk. We will ensure that they will train and develop our small farmers to take up to commercial farming.

We have a situation in the country that one can produce the raw material, the fresh milk in plenty and there is a ready buyer to purchase at a guaranteed price. Our purchase price of fresh milk from the farmers is around A$ 0.35 which is very close to the Australian fresh milk price to their farmers. Dairy farming will be a good business in this country. We need to encourage our farmers. Milco is engaged in business in the interest of three important sectors.

The raw and packaging material producer[especially milk] , the company and its people to ensure commercial viability and the valued consumer.

Milco is also planning to introduce a range of new products that are high in quality, and nutrition as well, more importantly the pricing and packaging will be affordable.

He said that since some people cannot even afford the 400g Highland milk powder packet which is priced at Rs 210, the company is planning to launch packs at affordable prices.

The company is also planning to increase the sales to Rs 8b by 2012 from the Rs 4b at present. The biggest buyer of fresh milk in the country MILCO ,manufactures all its products using fresh milk. The products of MILCO include, milk, cheese, yoghurt, ice cream, milk powder and condensed milk, he said.

Speaking of the plans for the North and the East he said that the company has already started milk collection and said our plans will cover the total country to develop fresh milk. We will also make substantial investment where it is very necessary. Wickramasinghe said that our main objective is not to make profits only, but protect the consumer and the farmer. He said that recently MILCO increased the price paid to the farmers but did not increase the price of the products as we want to give quality, nutritious products at an affordable price.

This institution was established in 1956 as The National Milk Board under the purview of the Ministry of Agriculture. It commenced operations with a single factory in Colombo commissioned under the Colombo Plan. Today it boasts of a wide network of milk collection, production and sales centres administrated throughout the island and continues to contribute towards the enhancement of the rural economy while providing the much needed nutrition to the entire nation.

In 1986, the National Milk Board was converted into Milk Industries of Lanka Company Limited as a government owned company. In 1998 Kiriya Milk Industries of Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. took over the administration of Milk Industries of Lanka Company Limited. In 2000, Kiriya was taken back by the government and in 2001 it was named as Milco (Pvt) Ltd., which now stands as a 100 percent government owned company.