Educated youth and non-resident Indians have set up their own dairy farms and are contributing their produce to the co-operative milk union under KMF.
This hilly region, which once grew nothing but monsoon grass, today boasts of one of the finest international university campuses. Although it is still deeply rooted in rural activity and is set to challenge the big players in dairy farming.
“This place was not fit for developing anything, let alone dairy farming. In 1974, former Union minister TA Pai made an appeal for setting up a dairy here under the co-operative set-up. But the National Dairy Development Corporation brushed aside his suggestion, terming it as a madman’s dream,” said Diwakar Shetty Kaup, director of a dairy in Manipal.
“But what we now have is a dairy that is all set to become number one in terms of technology, modernisation, spread of movement and profitability. Today, we are second only to the Bangalore-based Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) in these terms,” he said.
What makes the place a special dairy development zone is that even educated youth and non-resident Indians have set up their own dairy farms and are contributing their produce to the co-operative milk union under KMF.
“The Mangalore-based Dakshina Kannada Milk Union pays `2 per litre more to farmers than the other 11 milk unions. So more people are attracted to dairy farming,” said president of the union Raviraj Hegde Kodavoor.
“We have 65,000 dairy farmers contributing over
5 lakh litres of milk. Still, we are facing a shortage of 1.5 lakh litres and this is being imported from Hassan Dairy and Mother Dairy in Bangalore. But soon, we will have an enhanced chilling plant and storage plant at Manipal and also a separate plant for producing value-added products, which will bring us on par with Bangalore dairy, if not ahead,” he said.
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