Milk procurement improves by 50k litres; milk Union expects better days in July

MANGALURU: The Dakshina Kannada Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union that has been procuring close to a lakh litre of milk from other unions to tide over the demand because of a shortfall in production, is in a little better position this month, with improvement in procurement by about 50,000 litres. The union says this is due to improved fodder situation due to monsoons. But still with demand for curds and milk-based products being high, the union is still forced to procure milk from outside unions to tide over the shortfall.

The Union’s milk procurement from its farmers here is about 3.75 to 3.85 lakh litres per day, whereas the demand for milk is 3.80 to 3.90 lakh litres per day. With an average sales of 70,000 litres of curds, which decreases during monsoon months by 20%, and 30,000 litres of other milk-based products, the shortfall of one lakh litres of milk is being met by milk unions in Mandya, Hassan and Mysuru.

KP Sucharitha Shetty, president of the union, told TOI that while procurement has seen an increase by 45,000 to 50,000 litres per day, the demand also has seen a spike, forcing the Union to procure milk from outside unions – ``since loyal customers have reposed faith in us and we cannot disappoint them.’’ Currently the total demand is for about 5 lakh litres per day, for a mix of products, including 3.80 lakh litres of milk. ``We expect the milk procurement to go up to 4 lakh litres per day by July end due to monsoons,’’ he added.

During Covid time, the procurement had reached an all-time high of 5.20 lakh litres per day, as Work From Home culture saw youth enter the dairy sector for additional income. But issues like lumpy skin disease (LSD) to cattle, increase in feed cost making dairying almost unremunerative, were some of the affecting milk productions in the district. Also, milk production is unprofitable in the region because of high use of cattle feed, which is expensive, unlike in other regions.

In Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts farmers use 80% cattle feed and 20% Napier grass or dry hay, whereas in other regions like Malnad, Mandya and Hassan, their cattle feed dependency is less than 50%, due to availability of other feeds like grass and sweet corn-based grains. The Union has 1.4 lakh members and 67,888 are active.