Farmers in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi will get from Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers Union (DKMUL) from October 11 an incentive of ₹2.05 per litre. In effect, the DKMUL will be procuring milk from the farmers at the price of ₹32 per litre. Presently, DKMUL is procuring milk at ₹29.05 per litre.
Talking to reporters, DKMUL president K.P. Sucharitha Shetty said the union decided offer the incentive to encourage farmers to provide more quantity of quality milk. The ₹2.05 incentive will be paid for the next three months and it will add to incentive of about ₹5 per litre that the State government has planned to give to the farmers shortly, he said.
Mr. Shetty said DKMUL was procuring milk from 68,000 farmers associated with 732 cooperative milk societies in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. While an average of 4.65 lakh litres of milk was being procured every day, in the last two months the average daily procurement increased to about 5.65 lakh litres.
The ₹2.05 incentive will account for expenditure of ₹10 lakh per day for the union. An official announcement of the new incentive for the farmers of the twin districts will be announced during the special meeting of the union that will be held on October 11.
Mr. Shetty said union was producing 19 different milk products and the daily requirement of milk was about 5.3 lakh litres. As not all milk societies were supplying milk at the required quantity, the union decided to provide incentive to encourage more farmers to supply milk to the union, he said.
Shortfall
While stating about the plans of the union to have ice-cream making and butter making machinery in the two districts, Mr. Shetty said presently there was slight shortfall in availability of butter . “It is a temporary phenomenon. It will be resolved shortly,” he said. The union has planned to have for farmers children a hostel ,which will be similar to the one that has come up in for children of farmers in Shettihalli in Bengaluru.
