Punjab farmers get up disinfected milk plant

It's an endeavour of four friends, all progressive farmers. And for the state, it is the first oxytocin-free milk plant.

'Dairy Farmers Milk Products', started with an initial investment of Rs 1.5 crore in July this year at village Kanganwal, by Balbir Singh of village Chowki Mann, Kanwaljit Singh Hara of village Kanganwal, Rajpal Singh Sandhu of village Kular, Daljit Singh Gill of village Sadarpura, at present is supplying more than 5,000 litres oxytocin-free milk and milk products in Ludhiana and its nearby areas.

From this week onwards, they will also be venturing into the Himachal Pradesh market for selling their products.

At present, Dairy Farmers Milk Products has entered the market with products like toned milk, double-toned milk, standard milk, full cream milk, curd and cheese. Soon they will also be coming up with white butter.

Speaking to Business Standard, Balbir Singh, who is also a law graduate said: "We are farmers but wanted to go beyond sowing crops and so dairy was a great option. So we set up dairy farms in our respective villages. Right now, we have around 600 cattle and a capacity of 10,000 litres of milk at our plant. Earlier, we used to sell all this milk to Nestle.''

"The idea of the oxytocin- free milk plant came in our mind because even a layman knows the side-effects of this hormone (oxytocin). It is injected into milch animals just before milking so that the milking process can be completed soon. But then, this hormone, which enters the human body through milk, has been found to bring about hormonal imbalance in humans. This injection is banned in Punjab but dairy farmers use it nevertheless."

And though they have cows in plenty, they don't use this injection and even the farmers from whom they buy milk have to sign an agreement that they will not use oxytocin.

"We also have a laboratory at our plant to check the presence of this hormone, along with the fat content and other aspects of milk,'' informed Balbir.

"We are processing 5,000 litres of milk every day and because there is not much awareness about oxytocin milk, we have kept the prices at par with that prevailing in the market. Standard milk is priced at Rs 19 per kg, toned milk at Rs 17 per kg, double toned Rs 15 per kg," he said.

At present, the milk and milk products are bring sold through two self-owned retail outlets and a around 30 dealers.