GLUT IN MILK BUT POVERTY OF IDEAS TO MANAGE!-ANDHRA'S WOES

Milk is considered the most valuable nutritive food available to all those not consuming meat, egg and fish in their daily diet and as per the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi, "Milk and Honey" must flow in his ideally conceived "Ramarajya"! Till the arrival of that Titan late Dr Varghese  Kurien on the scene, milk availability ad libitum to Indian citizens always remained a distant dream. Now that what was considered not achievable once has been achieved through the well lauded Operation  Flood program ushered in by Dr Kurien, the country seems to be faced with a new challenge-the "problem of plenty"! Look at the report from Andhra Pradesh where over 1.7 lakh liters of excess milk collected by the state milk federation find no buyers putting the authorities in a dilemma regarding disposal of this milk. Is it not strange that in an age when technological solutions are on the table for solving any food related problems, the federation is throwing up its hands not having any clue as to how this contingency can be handled. Here is a take on this ironical situation.   

"Usually there are problems with shortages. But in the case of A.P. Dairy Development Cooperative Federation (APDDCF) the opposite is true. It is faced with the unique problem of glut of milk so much so that it doesn't know where to store all the milk that is coming its way.Everyday the Federation is left with an extra 1.70 lakh litres to handle which it simply can't. Therefore, it is toying with the idea of declaring a 'milk holiday' once in a fortnight.The idea is not to procure milk two days in a month so as to take care of storage problem and also the rising cost of procurement. The proposal will be placed before the APDDCF board to get its nod. The last time the Federation declared a milk holiday was in 1993. The APDDCF has been flooded with surplus milk from September onwards. The per day procurement shot up from 3.90 lakh litres in August to 4.69 lakh litres in September. It touched 5.27 lakh litres in October and 5.93 lakh litres in November. In December, milk procurement is projected to be 6.29 lakh litres. Faced with this unusual phenomenon, the Federation has started converting the excess milk into skimmed milk powder (SMP). "We are doing all this only to not inconvenience farmers," says Mohammed Ali Rafath, managing director and vice chairman, APDDCF. Unlike private diaries, the APDDCF is procuring milk beyond its requirement to help the farmers. Its factory has a capacity to handle only 4 lakh litres a day, including 30,000 litres of by-products such as flavoured milk, butter, khova, lassi. In the last few months it has been getting an extra 1.70 lakh litres milk per day. Of this, 1.02 lakh litres is buffalo milk and the rest cow. To procure this excess milk, it has to shell out Rs.41 lakh per day. To tide over the problem, the APDDCF has started converting the milk into powder and now it has a stock of 1,000 metric tonnes of butter and 800 metric tonnes of skimmed milk powder. To clear this stockpile, the Federation has asked the Women Development and Child Welfare Department to use its powder milk in its programme of supplying cooked food to pregnant and lactating mothers. "This way we hope to supply 100 tonnes of skimmed milk powder per month", says Mr. Rafath. The excess milk production is the result of milch animal induction programme wherein the government provides 25 per cent subsidy on purchase of cattle and also reimburses transport charges. Another factor is the vigorous artificial insemination programme taken up by the Animal Husbandry Department. Why can't the APDDCF push up its sales? It cannot because there are no takers for its Vijay brand of milk. While Hyderabad has a liquid milk market of 12 lakh litres a day, APDDCF accounts for just 3.60 lakh litres a day. Now the APDDCF is planning to develop forward linkages by strengthening its district market where the sales are very dismal".

One of the objectives of Operation Flood was to create a milk grid with the avowed intention of helping to create a linkage between the production hubs and consumption centers. Why the Andhra milk federation is not able to make use of this to send milk to those places suffering from shortage or sending it to milk processing centers having powder making facilities is not clearly understood. It is unfortunate that the country is failing again its farmers after the food grain fiasco for which the Supreme Court had to intervene to stop rotting of procured grains, improperly stored. The federation boast that after all it is procuring all the milk offered by its farmers, cannot justify its incompetence in anticipating such a glut and making contingency arrangements to handle the surplus. Look at the sorry situation in the market where major milk powder consumers are frantically running around for securing their requirements of milk powder when country is the top most producer of fluid milk in the world!. What prevented the Federations in the states from building adequate powder making capacity to meet such eventualities? Apathy and callousness? In stead of taking fluid milk to far away villages why it is not possible to create a supply channel for milk powder at affordable prices to consumers located at such places. It is time National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is mandated once more by Government of India, this time to deal with the surplus and bring some sanity to the sector.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE VEGETABLE ANXIETY SYNDROME-A SUMMER PHENOMENON!

Global efforts to make people eat more vegetables are intended to provide a healthy diet offering many micro nutrients and phyto chemicals with proven credentials. According to health experts fruits and vegetables must constitute about 50% of the food on one's dining plate to ensure freedom from frequent ailments and common diseases. Still the growth of consumption of these protective foods is hardly perceptible due to many factors. One of the most intimidating reasons is the relative cost of fruits and vegetables which have become non-affordable to more than three fourth of the global population while even those with adequate disposable income prefer to take calorie rich and fatty foods due to their highly palatable nature. Another important reason is the seasonal nature of fruits and vegetables available mostly during summer and their highly perishable nature. Modern technology does have means to extent the life of these fresh produce which commercial processors deploy in ample measures but when it comes to storage at the home level,most kitchens do not have the wherewithal to capitalize on seasonal gluts and low prices due to limited storage facilities at low temperatures. If pundits are to be believed such a situation, unwittingly leading to considerable wastage of foods at the household level, affects the morale of many housewives who are overwhelmed, becoming literally panicky, by the extent of rotting following the buying spree and subsequent inability to protect them. Here is a take on this new development in consumer attitude and behavior.     

"What should be a beautiful and inspiring sight — your kitchen, overflowing with seasonal produce — is sometimes an intimidating tableau of anxiety. The knobbly piles and dirt-caked bunches are overwhelming. Already the peak-ripe multicolored peppers are developing soft spots; the chard is wilting and the race is on. "People often feel overwhelmed in the kitchen, and when all this produce suddenly arrives, they panic," said Ronna Welsh, a chef in Brooklyn who teaches workshops on, among other topics, produce management. Vegetable anxiety can strike anyone at this time of year: C.S.A. subscribers, compulsive farm-stand stoppers and even vegetarians. "All this produce arrives with a deadline," said Benjamin Elwood, a lawyer in St. Paul. "It's like when a DVD comes from Netflix. You feel like you have to watch the movie ASAP in order to get your money's worth, but the pressure makes you not want to watch it."

Though there are some proven household techniques that can preserve fruits and vegetables for some time, the products do not meet with the expectations of the consumers vis-a-vis fresh produce. Steeping preservation, sugar infusion, canning and bottling, dehydration etc change the texture and eating quality dramatically. In contrast commercial players deploy large scale freezing, modified atmosphere storage and packing, irradiation, cold sterilization etc to get extended periods of storage life. Probably it may be a challenge for food technologists to come up with home scale technologies practicable under situations that prevail in kitchens of middle class families which can achieve a few days extra life with least cost. Recent innovation of a simple paper strip impregnated with some plant extracts capable of increasing the life of perishable foods in the refrigerator could be a boon to house wives all over the world. More such innovations can make the life of middle class families much more comfortable without causing the so called "vegetable anxiety syndrome" .

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com