June 14, 2012

Sri Lanka to attain milk production sufficiency by 2016

Sri Lanka will achieve self-sufficiency in milk production by 2016, K.M.T. Kendaragama, Secretary to the Ministry of Livestock and Rural Community Development said.

Accordingly, the current production will be increased up to one million litres per day which is 50% of the national requirement. He said at a media briefing that the Ministry has launched a campaign to promote liquid milk consumption among people.

Liquid milk is comparatively much cheaper and of more nutritional value than imported milk powder. In keeping with the Mahinda Chintana programme to make the country self-sufficient in milk, the Cabinet recently decided to purchase all milk produce of dairy farmers. Consequently MILCO purchases all milk produced. MILCO has installed modern machinery to process and store the milk.