INDIAN DAIRY EXPERT

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27675, 3 June 1955, Page 7

INDIAN DAIRY EXPERT

STUDY OF INDUSTRY IN N.Z. PRINCIPAL INTEREST IN TOWN MILK The amount of butter eaten in New Zealand must startle Mr G. S. Godbole, dairy development officer for Bombay State, for in his country lack of refrigeraaion, as well as the cost of production, does not allow much to be used. Mr Godbole is paying a sixmonths visit to New Zealand under the Colombo Plan to study the New Zealand dairy * industry in all. its aspects. He took a bachelor of science degree at Reading University, and a bachelor of agriculture degree at Bombay University.

In Bombay, one of the staple items of diet for middle-class and wealthier people was ghee, said Mr Godbole. This was made by melting and boiling butter, then cooling and filtering it. Ghee, which was 100 per cent, fat, had a high nutritive value and a good flavour. It cost the consumer the equivalent of about 3s per lb in New Zealand currency. Mr Godbole said the town milk supplies were his chief concern. There was plenty of milk, and the chief problem was one of collection and distribution. Until recent years, farmers who produced the milk brought it to the cities and sold it when and where they could. Now the milk was being brought, often on foot or by bicycle, for distances up to five miles to villages where there were Government collecting depots. The milk was brought to the depots twice a day, he said. It was tested and the Government, after buying it, had it filtered and put into cans in which an ice-packed cylinder ran from top to bottom. About 201 b of ice was used to cool and keep fresh each 10 gallons of milk. It was cheaper to use ice than to build plants while the scheme was still in its experimental stages. It had not yet been determined which areas were likely to produce milk in the quantities required. Mixed Farms In India, most of the milk came from mixed farms, said Mr Godbole. They were better, in India, for a farmer to achieve a balanced economy. In the cities, milk-selling depots had been established, for Government milk was not yet delivered to consumers’ homes. In some cities, milk was distributed to school children, who paid half the cost (about 2d a pint), the other half being paid by the municipality. It was planned to pasteurise all Government milk eventually, and a start had been made in the large cities, said Mr Godbole. Individuals still boiled their milk twice a day. Big treatment stations were being built, but there was bound to be some opposition, and the project was being taken a step at a time. Milk powder imported from New Zealand was used in some cities for standardising milk, but there was no real need for large quantities of dried milk except in times of seasonal shortage during the summer, said Mr Godbole. Some cities had it supplied by the Government to reduce the cost of milk, but the introduction of milk powder reduced the market for the milk producer. Mr Godbole expressed his admiration for the organisation of the dairy industry in New Zealand. At Kaiapoi he has seen a plant used for producing deep-frozen cream and milk powder, and for milk treatment. It was a system India might adopt, he said. New Zealand’s dairy industry was very advanced, and India would have to follow the lines on which New Zealand had made such progress in transport, pasteurisation and bottling methods. Mr Godbole will leave next week to visit treatment stations and milk producers in Otago.