Archives

Best milk pockets on the decline

by P. Rajaratnam in Nuwara Eliya

The hill and the mid-country zones which were the best milk pockets in Sri Lanka a few years ago has progressively and drastically declined in the recent past due to the cattle population gradually dwindling due to various constraints and difficulties.

At the moment, the Spray Dried Milk Factory at Ambewela is acutely short of its collection of fresh milk in the hill country and elsewhere. This factory which has a capacity for 120,000 litres for its milk powder collection, has come down drastically to the minimum of 75,000 to 60,000 litres. At the moment this factory has come to a state of packing milk powder imported from abroad at a colossal amount in foreign exchange.

According to statistics available, in the latter part of 1976 the National Milk Board collected 308,000 pints of milk of which 200,000 pints came from the hilly country and the mid-country. An appreciable quantity was from the Estate sector.

Taking into consideration the working of the estate sector, most workers who were once upon a time, encouraged to promote livestock breeding have been discouraged in this field due to a number of constraints and difficulties - such as lack of grasslands within the estate, and the heavy inputs of cattle feed, in addition to lack of encouragements by the estate management.

It would be recalled at the 34th annual general meeting of the Ceylon Planters' Association held recently at Nuwara Eliya, a number of guest speakers requested the planting community to encourage its workforce to take up to cattle breeding, as an economic supportive measure among its labour force, whereby both the country and the workers will benefit.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager