‘Milk is costly, cola is not’

Will you ask the shopkeeper to reduce the price of cola, even if you have to pay more than what you pay for a litre of milk? You may not do that.

A person in Mangalore, who is selling organically grown vegetables and other food items, faces many questions related to price when he sells milk collected from native varieties of cows.

“Milk is costly for many consumers here, but not the cola in the neighbouring retail store,” was his simple reply when asked about the demand for milk in his shop. He says that he sells fresh milk sourced from native varieties of cows.

Earlier he had eight cows in his home near the city. Only three of them are left now. He says that since his house in close to the city, his cows are easy targets for cow abductors. “Otherwise how can five cows vanish suddenly? I was rearing them for more than a decade,” he says, adding that cows come back home every day even if they are left out for grazing.

Though being a degree graduate and from a family of farmers, he never mentions that with his customers. “It is difficult for many to digest the fact that an educated person is in the business of selling vegetables and other organic products. For most of them, educated people should be employed. But people forget the fact that they cannot do anything without farming,” he says.

On the type of consumers visiting his organic vegetables shop, he says that he gets health-conscious customers and those who are fed up with current food products. Many visit the shop not because they like it, but because western world is taking note of the organic products, he adds.