Big Job For Milk Expert

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32303, 22 May 1970, Page 14

Big Job For Milk Expert

A New Zealander who is recognised as a world expert on the organising and establishment of milk plants will hold a major advisory position in a $241 million dairy improvement and milk marketing scheme in India.

He is Mr T. P. J. Twomey, a senior executive in the Dairy Board’s technical division, who has been granted two years leave of absence to take a position with the World Food Programme’s “Operation Flood.” “Operation Flood” is the biggest single project undertaken by the World Food Programme in its seven-year history. The scheme will use 126,000 metric tons of dried milk powder and 42,000 tons of butter oil pledged by sev-

eral donor countries, including the European Economic Community.

The scheme will extend over five years. By that time it is hoped that all milk stations in use in India will have reached capacity output. Mr Twomey, who joined the Dairy Board in 1960, was seconded several times from the Dairy Division, Department of Agriculture, to the

Department of Foreign Affairs to assist with New Zealand’s Colombo Plan work in planning technical assistance to Asian countries in their dairy development work. From 1957 to 1959 he was resident dairy consultant to the Indian Government, and helped to plan and bring into use the large New Delhi milk scheme, and others. In recent years Mr Twomey has been on technical and servicing missions, to South-

East Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. Many of the missions have been to organise and establish milk plants. The Food and Agriculture Organisation sought Mr Twomey’s services through its World Food Programme and the Indian Government because he was familiar with India’s stock and other problems. He will work from New Delhi, starting next month.