President calls for increased milk production

President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday directed authorities in the livestock development and dairy product industry to implement a suitable programme for promoting the use of organic dairy products, with an emphasis to produce nutritionally superior liquid milk for the country.

The President said so while on a visit to the Polonnaruwa milk factory of Milco Private Limited to inspect its activities. Livestock and Rural Development Deputy Minister H R Mithrapala and Milco chairman Sunil Wickremesinghe accompanied the President on his visit. President Mahinda Rajapaksa instructed officials to expand its operations to increase liquid milk production. Increasing domestic milk production was a basic pledge in the Mahinda Chinthana development programme.

President Rajapaksa pointed out that the country imports more than 75, 000 metric tonnes of milk powder annually, for which it pays round 400 million US dollars. "If the country could save such huge sums of money from going to foreign countries, it could be used for development activities.

He also requested officials to work with more dedication by providing the public healthy dairy products against those genetically engineered livestock products which are available in the market.

President Rajapaksa also inspected the factory's ultra high temperature milk processing plant, recently imported from Finland at a cost of Rs 315 million. The plant is expected to increase milk production.

The Cabinet recently approved a proposal by the Livestock Ministry to increase dairy milk production by bringing 2500 cows to the factory's 2500-acre dairy farm in Polonnaruwa.

According to Livestock and Rural Community Development Minister Arumugam Thondaman, Milco had the capacity to process 70,000 litres of milk per eight hour shift as at present.