December 2, 2010

 

Consumer's agricultural knowledge to aid Thailand's local dairy farmers

 

 

Consumer awareness of healthy foods and improved farming knowledge will be keys to help domestic dairy farmers survive over the next decade, said Veerasak Wongsombat, president of the Milk for Thai Club.

 

The club believes the local industry will be threatened increasingly by cheaper imported dairy products including raw milk and milk powder as free trade agreements expand.

 

"If Thai dairy farmers lack a proper support from the government or fail to adjust themselves, I think the dairy farming occupation might disappear from the country," said Mr Veerasak.

 

Thai dairy farmers' problems include high production cost, lack of farm management knowledge, and low prices for their raw milk.

 

Mr Veerasak said that better consumer awareness of foods for health would help not only the local dairy industry but other agricultural fields.

 

Consumers should be educated more about what agricultural products are good for their health, he said. When they have sufficient knowledge, they will naturally force agricultural producers to improve their product quality.

 

"Higher product quality will finally lead to an increase in the purchase prices that consumers are willing to pay," he added.

 

In order to achieve better farming management, dairy farmers also need to adapt best practices to reduce farm operating costs.

 

For example, Chiangmai Freshmilk Farm in Lamphun province exemplifies the success of a dairy farm adopting biotechnology to increase the ratio of female calves to 70% from its 1,000 cows.

 

Improving milk yields as well as promoting the health benefits of milk to lift sales to consumers will help the Thai industry fend off competition.

 

Using sex selection in calves has been estimated to generate at least THB200 million (US$6.62 million) annually for the dairy industry by increasing the number of female calves, which are valued at THB3,600 (US$119.21) per head, compared with THB600 (US$19.87) for a male calf.

 

Dairy farmers need useful information from both the government and private sectors to help them reduce management costs and also improve raw milk volume per cow, Mr Veerasak said.

 

Vichien Polvatanasug, the club's researcher, said Thailand's commercial dairy market was valued at about THB50 billion (US$1.66 billion) annually, of which THB12 billion (US$400 million) comes from the school milk project.

 

However, about 20,000 dairy farms nationwide produce only 900,000 tonnes a year or raw milk, worth about THB15 billion (US$500 million).

 

Mr Vichien said the Thai dairy industry had more room to grow as demand for raw milk was increasing and about 400,000 tonnes of raw milk are imported yearly.

 

Meanwhile, demand for Thai parent breeding stock is also high from Asean countries as Thai breeders are strong and can survive tropical weather.