The Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, Milma, has launched a ‘Milk Challenge’ campaign to encourage people to consume more milk to boost immunity.

Through this initiative, the milk cooperative is seeking to lift the sagging levels of milk procurement and sales due to the pandemic-induced lockdown and help the hard-hit dairy farmers by increasing sales.

‘Have a little more milk, save our dairy farmers’ is the basic theme of the drive which exhorts people to boost their immunity by consuming more milk. This would also help dairy farmers in the state who find it increasingly difficult to move the commodity for procurement and sales.

Farmers in deep crisis

The campaign seeks to drive home the message states that, besides health benefits, consuming more milk will save dairy farmers from slipping into a deeper crisis, especially in the Malabar region.

Milma procures around eight lakh litres from the milk cooperatives in the Malabar region a day. However, milk sales have reduced by half of this due to the stiff restrictions arising from the lockdown.

Milma is in a position to procure only 60 per cent of the total output, leaving a huge surplus at the primary level. The ensuing crisis could be overcome only if the consumers buy at least half a litre more milk a day, Milma said in a statement.

Huge surplus left behind

Earlier, Milma had sought an exemption from the restrictions arising from the ‘triple lockdown’ clamped on four districts to contain the spread of Covid-19, pointing out that these curbs would seriously mar its procurement and distribution operations in the milk-surplus state.

In an earlier letter to the Chief Minister, Milma Chairman PA Balan requested the State government to offset the additional cost incurred by routing the unsold surplus to milk powder factories outside the State. Even this movement of milk across the border has been affected now with neighboring states also enforcing lockdown.

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