Rival for N.Z. milk in Mauritius

Press, 24 October 1978, Page 16

Rival for N.Z. milk in Mauritius

From the “Financial Times,” London

Like many tropical nations Mauritius depends for its milk supplies on the übiquitous pewdered product — mostly from. New Zealand — the inevitable can, or highlyexpensive whole milk from South Africa or France which costs up to Rs 5 a litre (about 85 cents). Traditionally, in an island dominated by the Indian race, there is the village cow keeper. The cows kept in dark stabies, are tended bv the women of the household. They are a familiar hazard on the narrow' roads and may produce about 4 litres o. milk a day for sale to the milk retailer. He peddles “du

lait au bicyclette” from the cans hung at all angles from a dilapidated bike. But the lure of a steady income from the cane fields and sugar factory is calling the women from the roadside, and now only 7000 litres of milk a day is supplied through traditional channels. There have been attempts to organise bulk collections of milk and help the cow keepers, but with little success. The United Nations Development Project here tried to make a start in 1965 but only now does there appear to be a breakthrough. The United Nations is backing the Government’s two livestock-breeding stations by helping the setting ur> of iarge-scale feedlot

milk production based on by-products from the country’s staple product, sugar, and the researches in the Caribbean and South America of Dr Reg Preston, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen. With 900,000 Mauritians clamouring for fresh milk, and ah estimated 900,000 tourist nights to cater for, there is considerable scope for expansion. Current home production is about 50,000 to .60,000 litres a day from about 20,000 cows. They are kept on the two Government farms, the sugar estates which sell milk direct to their workers, and by the cow keepers, whose numbers have dropped from 32,000 in 1965 to about 19,000. The aim of the U.N.D.P. project and the Government is to produce 3000 litres a day of fresh milk from two units of 350 cows each by 1980 and establish a blueprint for intensive production in feed lots. The sugar estates are anxious to diversify, and are quickly following the project’s progress, finding that cattle fed their by-products of sugar cane tops and molasses with added urea can produce milk and beef economically. Plans are being made for two or three neighbouring sugar estates to co-operate in the production of 2000 litres of pasteurised whole milk a day for sale through local Mauritian, stores and supermarkets. The United Nations Food and Agricul-

ture Organisation optimistically estimates that there could be 10 units each of 1000 cows producing 18,000 litres a day by 1987. With the producer receiving Rs 1.25 to 1.50 a litre the hope is to make Mau-ritian-produced milk available for retailing at Rs 2.00 to 2.50 a litre. Powdered milk sells at Rs 14 a kilo. In 1976 milk imports in terms of liquid equivalent equalled almost. 230.0C0 litres a day. In 1975 nearly .7000 tonnes of carcase beef were imported to supplement home production of just over 1000 tonnes. The Government’s blueprint feedlots are situated on the coastal regions of the country away from the high plateau where a biting fly prevents serious livestock production, although another section of the project is now claiming successful control of the fly. Land is valuable and scarce in Mauritius so the cattle in feedlots are housed on concrete slatted floors and consume either sugar cane tops from the harvest or whole chopped cane grown in upland marginal areas where it will not mature, sufficiently for sugar crushing. The ration is supplemented with the by-products of molasses. Meanwhile, the private sector, stimulated by the Government’s new-found will to develop a Mauritian milk and beef industry, has put up its own proposals. From feedlot and pasture the private investors aim to produce 50 per cent of the country’s beef and 20 per cent of its milk in six years.