Domestic milk production increases:
Saving a staggering $ 400 m annually
by P. Krishnaswamy

Sunil Wickramasinghe
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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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