The Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Milma) is set to launch an array of Ayurveda veterinary medicines meant to address various diseases in cattle. Milma’s new venture into medicines comes as part of its efforts to reduce the cost of milk production in the State.
Milma will launch eight Ayurveda medicines on Monday. Out of the 10 medicines it applied for sanction, Milma has got drug licence for eight. The most important among them is the medicine for mastitis or inflammation of cattle udder. The other medicines are for fever, diarrhoea, wounds, skin diseases, fleas, indigestion, and enhancement of milk production.
Milma chairman K.S. Mani said here that Milma turned to Ayurveda medicine production after conducting studies for several years. He said 20% of the cattle in Malabar were found to have been suffering from mastitis during the study.
“Allopathic treatment of mastitis is expensive for farmers. Use of Ayurveda medicines will reduce the cost of treatment greatly, and thus help the dairy farmer reduce the cost of milk production,” said Mr. Mani.
“Veterinary treatment, especially medicines, costs heavily for the dairy farmer after the expense of fodder. I am sure our intervention in veterinary medicine is going to make a big impact among the dairy farmers in Kerala,” said Mr. Mani.
The Malabar Rural Development Foundation (MRDF), which spearheads the Milma union activities in Malabar, would be responsible for the distribution of the Milma branded medicines.
Reasserting that Milma did not intend to increase milk price in Kerala, Mr. Mani said the price had not been increased since 2019 in spite of the heavy losses it suffered during the COVID-19 crisis. Milma had suffered a loss of ₹50 crore in Malabar during the COVID-19 years of 2000 and 2001.
“In spite of the losses, we are managing to pay the farmers for the milk they produce every 10 days. It is all because of our stringent financial management and 88% of the milk cost is reaching farmers. We are proud to say that ours was the only unit in the cooperative sector that worked without fail during the pandemic,” said Mr. Mani.
Minister for Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Milk Cooperatives J. Chinchurani will inaugurate the distribution of Milma’s veterinary medicines at a function here on Monday. She will also release the report of a comprehensive survey conducted on dairy farmers of Malabar.
Milma conducted an “investigation on the socio-economic profile of dairy farmers of Malabar region” with the support of the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University from 2018-19. “It was an exhaustive study done over a long period covering socio-economic aspects of the dairy farmers,” said Mr. Mani.
