Yangon, July 21 – cattle farmers from Ayeyarwady Region’s Hinthada Township are forced to stick with solely producing yogurt and other milk products, for want of pasteurized milk, as required machinery costs are reportedly unaffordable.
The town of Hinthada boasts approximately a hundred cattle farmers who collectively produced roughly 4,000 viss (6,400 kilograms) of milk every day.
Milk has a shelf life of just seven days, while yogurt reportedly lasts for up to a month, which is the catalyst behind why farmers have opted for producing the later.
“The milk becomes sour if left for an extended period of time, which is why we produce and sell only yogurt. We can’t afford to sell our yogurt at desirable prices because of burdensome expenses and large inputs of capital. I know the domestically produced milk by the Double Cow brand has a one month shelf life. But, we don’t have the technology to be able to produce such long lasting milk. It’s not because we don’t know how to, it’s because we can’t afford to invest in the types of machinery required,” explained Ko Min Min Htun, owner of a milking machine from the town of Hinthada.
Milk with a month long shelf life can be produced without using the official machinery, but it requires one improvise by shelling out on two attaching cooling machines and a milking machine, which costs approximately K25 million, as well as an electricity transformer which can supply the minimum requirement of 350 volts of electricity.
“We’re still striving to produce long shelf life pasteurized milk across Myanmar. But, it’s not that easy to connect every cattle farmer with a company that can provide a pasteurizing service; accessibility is difficult. Even in Yangon, there are only four or five places which can pasteurize milk,” said U Chit Ko Ko, joint secretary of the Buffalo, Cattle, Sheep & Goat Farmers Association.
Cattle farmers of Hinthada milk their cows on a daily basis, producing products such as yogurt, milk and butter which are then distributed throughout the six townships that make up the Hinthada district.
Source: The Myitmakha