To check adulteration, Punjab Milkfed for low cost technologies

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, September 24

Manjit Singh Brar, Managing Director, Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation Limited (Milkfed), today emphasised the need for low cost technologies to detect adulteration.

He was chairing the valedictory function of the two-day 8th National Seminar on ‘Indian dairy and food sector: Way forward to meet future challenges’ organised by the NDRI Graduates Association (NGA) here today.

He exhorted the research institutes to develop user-friendly low cost kits for the rapid detection of milk adulteration. “Adulteration is maligning the image of the dairy industry,” he said.

He also urged the NDRI to promote entrepreneurship to its graduates. He referred to low productivity of the dairy animals as a challenge and lauded the efforts of Punjab dairy farmers. He said Punjab contributed to 8 per cent of the milk production in the national pool with just 2.5 per cent milch animals of the country.

S Nagarajan, Managing Director, Mother Dairy, said consumer preferences for food had been changing and the dairy industry should gear up to meet their requirement. “Farmers and consumers are important stakeholders and both need to be satisfied. Product diversification and value addition is the key to success in the dairy industry,” he maintained.

Dr AK Srivastava, Director, NDRI, said the biggest challenge in the coming times would be to meet the food and nutritional security of the increasing population. “The population of the country will be 174 crore by 2050 and there will be requirement of 70-80 per cent more food vis-à-vis present availability. To produce more food will be a challenge, as the agriculture land would remain same, which is about 140 million hectare, of which 50 per cent is rain-fed,” he asserted.