The Traditional Milk Societies Association has accused the Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (Milma) of trying to damage the interests of dairy farmers and milk societies in the Malabar region.
At a press meet here on Wednesday, A.T. Jayson, secretary of the association, claimed that they would incur huge losses as the Malabar Regional Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union had decided to cut the price of excess milk being procured from societies by ₹10 and 55 paise. Normally, the amount of milk production comes down during summer and goes up in the monsoon.
He alleged that instead of finding markets to sell the excess amount of milk being produced now, the federation was trying to break the traditional societies. Mr. Jayson said that milk production had been on the rise in the Malabar region for the past few years and the requirement for the southern districts too was being met from here. However, Milma was not trying to tap this potential even as private milk producers from neighbouring States such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were trying to capture the market.