The Thiruvananthapuram region of the Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union (Milma) will conduct Milma Gramolsavam 2020 to collect ideas and suggestions from dairy farmers, milk societies, technical experts, people’s representatives and the public.
“The recommendations will be later catalogued to form Milma 2025, a five-year plan for the comprehensive development of the sector. Attaining self-sufficiency in milk production and economic stability of dairy farmers and strengthening of milk societies will be the major objectives of the plan,” said Kallada Ramesh, regional chairman, at a press meet here on Friday.
ISO certification for village-level bulk chilling centres, a ₹40-crore loan scheme in association with South Indian Bank for buying cattle, product diversification and training for dairy farmers at Anand, Gujarat, are the other projects to be implemented this financial year.
Haritha Milma
Moreover, Milma will launch Haritha Milma, an initiative to promote organic farming, and Milma Cow Bazar, a mobile app for buying and selling cattle. Dairy farmers will be encouraged to start organic vegetable farming and 11 farmer groups will be formed in the four districts under the region.
“As part of the ₹25-lakh project, the farmers will be provided everything from vegetable seeds to fertilizers to start farming,” he said.
The Milma Cow Bazar has been conceived as a measure to help the farmers who often are duped into buying unproductive cows from markets outside Kerala. The mobile app will function as an authentic platform for the farmers to trade their cows. “It will have all the details of the cows, but only milk society secretaries will have the access to contact owners. This feature was added to keep agents and traders away as it is a facility for the farmers.”
Plastic-free
Milma has also prepared an action plan to go plastic-free in the future. In the first phase, five milk ATMs will be opened at five centres in Thiruvananthapuram city. Meanwhile, the Green Kerala Company will be in charge of collecting Milma covers from customers on a daily basis.
Minister for Animal Husbandry K. Raju will inaugurate the regional-level village festivals at Anayadi here on on January 18.
