About a decade ago, we were importing about half of our national requirements of milk. But today we are importing about 80 per cent of our national requirements of milk. This is a big drain in our national economy and it amounts to about three and a half billion rupees per year at present. It hurts the national employment potential. It causes our people to purchase imported reconstituted milk at Rs. 25.20 per litre while our local dairy farmer sells his mik at Rs. 10.00 per litre.
About a decade ago, when we were importing only half of our national requirements of milk, we were doing well on our dairy development plan which consisted of a short-term plan and a long-term plan, both functioning simultaneously.
l. Short-term plan - collection of available milk locally - brings immediate financial benefits to farmers. 2. Long-term plan - development and conservation of the national dairy herd - brings financial benefits not immediately.
The biggest impact of the short-term plan was in the Dry zone which became the real milk pool to be tapped quickly. The long-term plan also worked fast in the Dry zone. The impact was dramatic. However, with the escalation of the LTTE. problem the milk collection network along with the processing centres were closed down. Development work became impossible in our best collection areas - in the Northern and Eastern provinces and the bordering areas.
Today we are collecting only about 240,000 litres of milk per day. The processing plants having a capacity for processing about 670,000 litres of milk per day are using a considerable amount of imported milk ingredients to run the factories. This import of milk ingredients, such as skim milk powder and butter oil is an advantage for private sector milk importers who are also processing locallv procured milk. They can face temptations to take mean advantage of using more and more imported milk ingredients and less and less local liquid milk. Their big factories are the excuse for this temptations. They would even prefer to use 100% imported milk ingredients if that was possible. These are the temptations of the private sector! Large factories should not be allowed. Small factories should be allowed at district level. Large factories at regional level cause unnecessary transport expenditure. This contributes to the low payment made to the local farmer for his milk. In our future plans, the private sector processors should be allowed to have processing plants with capacity commensurate with the volume of milk that will be avai1able only. The maximum capacity should be a throughput of not more than 40,000 litres per day only and should function at district level only. The private sector processors should purchase their requirements of liquid milk directly only from the District Dairy FarmersÕ Co-operative Union and never direct from farmers.
lmproved animals, produced at great expense and involving very sincere effort under the long term plan, have found their way to the butcher before contributing anything for our economy. Half these valuable animals have been slaughtered mostly through illicit slaughter. Who is answerable for this waste?
We kill our good animals which are well adopted and high producing and at the same time proposing to import animals for development!
On a visit to a farm to treat a sick animal I usually make a mental note of the value of the farm herd. On a subsequent visit to this farm some of the good pregnant and milking cows are not there. On inquiry the farmer would say that he has sold them off to find money for urgent medical expenses for a sickness in the family. Usually in such sudden sales the animals fetch a very low price and immediately end up in illicit slaughter. Any new plans should ensure conservation of our cattle and buffalo herds. Cattle slaughter is actually an integral part of farming. As such, the responsibility of cattle slaughter should be made a function of the National Dairy Federation (N. D. F.) Laws should be enacted to confer this power by the government on the N.D.F. This will ensure a relief to the beef consumer. Beef processors should purchase their requirements from the N.D.F. only and never from individual farmers.
There are about 300,000 cattle owning farmers in Sri Lanka. They should organise themselves for self-reliance and self-determination. In this, the government should be only a facillitator. These farmers live in about 10,000 villages.
For policies and plans, performance targets are of the greatest importance. Our target in this proposed dairy development plan should bacica11y have 30 cattle owning farmer members per Village Dairy Co-operative Society. This is the basic structure. Each member would be producing an average of about 3 1/2 litres of milk per day. The Village Dairy Co-operative Society has the function and responsibility of collecting milk from the village. Therefore, each Village Dairy Co-operative Society will have to collect about 100 litres of milk per day from its members and hand it over to the Divisional Dairy Committee transporting system. The Divisional Dairy Committee would collect about 4000 litres of milk per day from the average of about 40 villages in the Division. This milk would be delivered to the respective District Dairy FarmersÕ Co-operative Union. Thus, the District Dairy Farmers' Co-operative Union would collect about 40,000 litres of milk per day. We have to work hard to achieve these targets which will ensure a national milk collection target of one million litres of milk per day according to a given time-frame. At this point we can completely stop import of milk.
The presidents of the Village Dairy Co-operative Societies in each Division (Divisional Secretary's division) would form the Divisional Dairy Committee. As there would be about 40 villages in a Division, there would be about 40 members in a Divisional Dairy Committee. The presidents and secretaries of the Divisional Dairy Committees in a particular district would form the District Dairy Farmers Co-operative Union. As there are about ten Divisions in each district, the District Dairy Co-operative Union will have 20 members. There should be no public servants in any of these associations and committees because otherwise farmers would lose their initiative. These are all management committees with specific functions and responsibilities at different levels.
The presidents of the District Dairy Co-operative Unions would be the members of the National Dairy Federation (N.D.F.). As there are 25 Districts there will be 25 members in the N.D.F.. It should be noted that, in this type of institutionalisation of dairy development even a farmer from a remote village, if he is clever enough, could become the president of the N.D.F, which is the highest body in management of dairy development at national level in Sri Lanka. Also, at every level the offcials are all practising dairy farmers. The N.D.F. would have a memhership of about 300,000 members islandwide forming a dairy sector involving a population of about 1 1/2 million people who are the family members of the member farmers. The N.D.F. would be responsible for formulating policies and plans for national dairy development. It should also provide all the inputs required by dairy farmers so that member farmers would never be at the mercy of private traders and commercial banks which were the mistakes we made in the past. Education, training and research in dairy science and dairy technology would have to be handled primarily by the N.D.F.
The 630 million rupees collected each year as taxes and duty on milk imports should be given to the N.D.F for Dairy development. Each year the membership fee of Rs. 100 collected from each member would form a sum of 30 million rupees. With this type of financial support the N.D.F. will be successful in making Sri Lanka self-sufficient in milk.
AIDS - that frightening killer, more virulent than the Nuclear explosions, is the result of man turning away from the Divine.
Even now, man is trying to find ways to overcome this evil through his own ingenuity, without turning to God, penitent and with a deep resolve to mend his ways - a very close parallel to the building of the Tower of Babel by those ancients.
When sinful living against God's commands began, with it started S.T.Ds and now when it had reached its peak, we have been rewarded with AIDS.
Is this the Plague forecast in the last Book of the Holy Scripture, The Book of Revelation, Chap. 15.
It is a cruel coincidence that on the day that the death, as a result of a fatal road accident, of a mother of an 11 year old student at Wesley College was recorded in the obituary column, an articIe in the front page of a Newspaper of December 10, referred to the mounting rate of road deaths - "120 road accidents per day and every 24 hours five people die instantaneously from these accidents."
These are cold statistics - but to many families it is stark reality.
However it is also difficult to believe that reckless drivers ("road hogs" as they are known in Britain) are all mentally unstable or physically ill. A more deep seated cause for such unnecessary loss of human life is total indiscipline on the roads perhaps due to the lack of proper driver training and ease with which a driver's licence can be obtained or because drivers have never learnt or totally ignore the rules of the road-the Highway Code.
It is essential to mete out instant punishment and heavy penalties for flouting road rules and to confiscate or cancel licences of drivers involved in major traffic offences which endanger life. Long jail sentences and payment of compensation for loss of life to victims' families, would be further deterrents.
This action needs to be implemented by a competent, well trained team of traffic police without fear or favour as drivers evade the law by bribing or influencing the authorities.
Establish an efficient, well organized public transport system-(What happened to the excellent system we had in the late 1950s and early 1960s?) with a large fleet of buses.
The private buses should be pensioned off and all the employees absorbed into the public transport system-after they have been well trained, tested and made legally bound to abide by a code of practice devised to embody road safety regulations.
Perhaps these strategies will create the much desired Utopia - all roads and highways in Sri Lanka totally free of accidents-where the loss of ONE human life by road accident would attract banner headlines.
Such a vision is imperative to a society which records the highest suicide rate in the world and soon will be followed by another hideous set of data - the highest number of deaths on the road.
The life of each and every individual is sacred and valuable. Let us use the motor vehicle responsibly as one of the most important inventions used for the benefit and convenience of human beings and not for their destruction.
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