One year on, Fonterra Program delivers milk production spike to farmers in Hanwella

Wednesday, 25 June 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Dairy development initiatives aimed at increasing liquid milk production in Sri Lanka

Dairy farmers taking part in the Fonterra Farmer Education and Training Program have seen an average 42% increase in milk production in just 12 months, leading to a 55% average growth in farmers’ dairy income. Fonterra Operations Director Satish Karunakaran said the program was developed using Fonterra’s generations of dairy expertise to help farmers produce more and higher quality milk.

“We’ve been operating in Sri Lanka for over 35 years and we want to give back to the local communities by sharing our expertise. The education program focuses on productivity, milk quality and sustainability. Getting all of these factors right ultimately helps local farmers produce higher quality milk, and grow their overall income. Fonterra has committed to building on these efforts and we will be continuing to step up our dairy development initiatives in the near future,” he said. Nutrition a key area One key area of the program is teaching the farmers about nutrition. Traditionally cows have fed on paddy and roadside grass; however, farmers in the program are now allocating five times more space in their gardens to grow CO3 grass, which is a type of grass that has higher nutritional value. Fonterra Dairy Development Manager Jim Burrell said feeding cows grass with higher nutritional value has been a major driver behind this rise in production and also helps improve the overall health of the cow.

“Their cows are now eating better quality and more feed each day which has meant over half of the families now milk their cows twice a day, as opposed to an average of once a day.” As part of the program Burrell and the program’s Executive Rajitha Jayasundara spend three days a week on each farm, working side by side with the dairy farmers to help them incorporate the new management practices that they have learnt into their daily routine. Farmer development program Fonterra began collecting local milk in 1997 and currently collects around 30,000 litres of milk each day to produce fresh dairy products under the Anchor Newdale range such as set yoghurt, stirred yoghurt, UHT milk packets, curd, and stirred fruit yoghurt. The milk is delivered by farmers to collection centres in the Western, Central and North-Western Provinces. A farmer development program in 1997 was introduced to provide training and advice to farmers supplying milk to Fonterra. Initially helping to develop the capabilities of 200 Sri Lankan dairy farmers, it has today grown to a network of around 4,000 farmers. Building on this, the intensive Fonterra Farmer Education and Training Program was launched in 2013 for a group of farmer families in Hanwella.