Cows' Milk and Powdered Milk the irony

I have a few cows. They are not anything special. Most of my stock are descended from one cow who is old and lives a pensioned life on the land. Her grand daughters are those that give me milk now along with her daughters.

I must confess I have not concentrated on this area of my farming as my hands are full. The government vet in the area does artificial insemination and that is how the cows get pregnant with supposedly sperm from good stock, and they say New Zealand jersey or friesan etc. The problem is I still have not had a cow that is a high yield one producing at least 10 litres a day, which I feel is a minimum to run a prductive dairy. The name of the game is to get as much output as possible for the same inputs just like higher yielding crops. I give fodder, water and vitamins so a better quality of animal is what I really should try and get.

The Ambewela farm in Nuwera Eliya has cows that average 25 liters a day, but the climate there is a distinct advantage.

That being said, the quasi government owned company, Milco has collection centers all over the country. I sell my milk to them and on average receive about 18/per liter. It is clearly unproftable to sell at this price and any bureaucrat worth his title should realize that they cannot encourage increased milk production in the country at these prices.

It must also be mentioned that 40 years ago the Polonnaruwa district had thousands of buffalo to till the soil and there was milk of high fat content from them, both for kids in the area and also for the tin milk factory set up there. I hardly see a buffalo anywhere today.

I have therefore decided to try and sell my fresh milk straight off the cow at 35/- a bottle and what ever I don't sell I take to Milco in the morning. I am only selling about 5 bottles a day now but with time hope to have a home delivery service at 40/- a bottle to the people living around me.

What I have had a problem with is this. The mass media is always advertising the benefits and vitamin content of powdered milk. The mothers' in the village believe it is bettter to give them powdered milk instead of fresh milk, properly boild. As most of you know the price of powdered milk is now near 200/- for a 400g pack. Over 95% of this poweder is imported even though local names are given to them. Most of it is imported from New Zealand.

I would like some information from Sri Lankans living overseas, as to whether powdered milk is even sold in those countries. I think this stuff is only available here and so what is not good for the Australians and New Zealanders is good for us.

To be fair fresh milk cannot be kept for long except under refrigerated conditions, and hence powdered milk was promoted in the past as it was easy to keep and make. However, many people in the village, where I live, have fridges and they only have water in them. They do not keep food because it is eaten fresh for each meal. The fridges were bought due to pressure from sales-men promising attractive payment terms and not because they need them, but that issue will be dealt with another time.

The issue of powdered milk given to infants in favor of mothers' milk will also be covered at a later date.

When i met one of my neighbors who was also selling his milk to Milco, while he was giving his children powdered milk, I tried to explain his folly, but he was adament he was doing the right thing by them. What can I say if a milk producer does not have faith that his milk is far superior to the stuff that comes out of a packet, I am fighting a losing battle.

The public appear to believe what advertising says, over their gut instincts, and we should try to teach people to analyse what they hear and read rather than take anything at face value. The ability of a person to think for him or herself is a mark of an educated society, more than the ability to read or write, the great literacry rate that we keep talking about. I am sure our ancestors were more able to think logically despite their inability to read or write and therefore made choices that were well thought out.

The blogs are a great avenue to promote debate and original thought and too many articles are just extracts from other sources rather than new thinking.