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Domestic milk production increases:

Saving a staggering $ 400 m annually



Sunil Wickramasinghe

The Government's concerted efforts to promote local milk production have had salutary results and the national production has increased by 16 percent to 299.3 Mn litres last year, Chairman of MILCO (Pvt) Ltd. Sunil Wickramasinghe told the Sunday Observer, citing the Central Bank report for 2012. The increasing trend in domestic milk production is continuing and self-sufficiency would be achieved soon thereby saving a staggering $ 400 Mn per year to the national coffers, he said. The production of milk by the MILCO had increased by 31 percent last year mainly due to the reasons that the company had regularised the price while having commercialized the dairy farming sector, he said.

Each farmer who is engaged in small time dairy farming is getting an average income of Rs. 5,150 per month, as a supplementary income, he said. The import of hybrid milch cows, regularized prices for the milk and sharing benefits with all stake holders will contribute to achieving self-sufficiency in milk in the coming years, he said. Expanding the dairy farming network throughout the country, including the North and East and introducing new breeding methods will be the other factors that will contribute to increased productivity, he said.

With the addition of the 2000 hybrid cows imported from Australia the National Livestock Development Board (NLDB) now has 12,000 cows in its 32 cattle farms in the country and the imported cows would contribute towards the government's target of achieving self-sufficiency in milk and milk products, NLDB Chairman Col. Ranjith Ellegala told the Sunday Observer.

"Milk collection in the formal sector, which includes large milk processors,increased 28 percent to 183.6 Mn litres in 2012 from 143.7 Mn ,litres in 2011", according to the Central Bank report for 2012. Other salient features of the report on dairy farming are:

"The growth in cattle milk production in 2012 was largely driven by the increased average farm gate price of liquid milk up to Rs. 50 per litre, which led to an increase in the number of milch cows by 11 percent in 2012. Increased contribution from the Northern and Eastern provinces, improvement in infrastructure, which include the number of chilling centres of both large milk collecting organizations as well as small to medium scale collectors, the various dairy development programs introduced by the government in the dairy sector contributed to the overall improvement in the industry.

"The milk collection from farms under the National Livestock Development Board (NLDB) also increased by 20 percent to 3.4 Mn litres in 2012 due to the higher yield of imported milch cows. The milk collection of the MILCO increased by 30 percent to 68 Mn litres of raw milk in 2012 leading to produce 4.6 Mn kg of milk powder, a growth of 25 percent. The import of milk powder declined by 5.5 percent to 79.4 Mn kg in 2012. "

 

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