Food Security & Health Safety Campaign

This article is supported by a Policy Paper on Import of Milk and Whey Powders in Pakistan by Center for Applied Policy Research in Livestock, University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, Lahore.

The menace of food adulteration specially of milk has hit hard on the consumer health. The first food item that a newborn consumes is milk which must be breast milk ideally. If due to any unfortunate circumstances the baby should be deprived of this, then the next option is fresh milk or dry milk formulation depending on affordability. There on milk is consumed daily in one form or the other and very child through his/her lifecycle is exposed to the variety of dangerous chemicals being criminally used in various stages for different purposes in processing or delivering to the consumer. Adulteration has a range of long term ill-effects on health including allergies, various types of cancers and body organ function failure.

Hats off to Ayesha Mumtaz, former Director General Punjab Food Authority for laying the foundation stone for checking adulteration on a war footing. The ground work is now being consolidated by the present Director General of Punjab Food Authority, Mr Nur ul Amin Mengel as an entire food safety inspectors force has been developed and is fully functional. Due to effective work of this force Punjab Food Authority is considered amongst the few efficient civil workforces such as the Motorway police, Traffic Wardens and 1122 that have delivered, but it has a long way to go.

To eradicate adulteration it is essential to dig deep into policies, rules and regulations. Organizational systems, management information systems, farm and sector monitoring systems, data management systems, research and experimentation facilities at private middle-sized farm level must be operational. Realtime field feedback identifying supply chain and human resource issues such as the availability and cost of trained workforce, availability and cost of fuel and energy must be taken into account. Technical support expertise, availability of local farm machinery, import duties of farm machinery, taxes and subsidies, availability and cost of quality fodder and quality milk producing animals, and exploitation by the middleman should be constantly reviewed. Chilling and milk transportation standards and policies, standardizing of farm procedures for hygiene, climate and environment control, water conservation practices, recycling etc. are areas which need immediate attention. The issues and solutions both lie within.

It is the contention of the writer researcher that apart from ethical and moral reasons such as greed, the main cause for adulteration is that dairy farming for the middle-sized farms rearing indigenous animals is not a profitable livelihood. This is resulting in closure of traditional farms as farmers are not getting a fair price for milk at the farm-gate. Price-capping policies of the government are not based on research based evidence and are counter to the factual position. To sustain his business the farmer resorts to adulteration at his end. The middleman is also cashing on the increasing demand of milk by supplying artificially manufactured milk. The livestock department has failed to give a progressive policy to the sector. Surging Whey Powder (WP) and Solid Milk Powder (SMP) imports have offered a cheap and hazardous alternative to fresh raw milk thus robbing the farmer of a rightful milk price.

In support of this view a policy paper on Whey Milk Imports in Pakistan developed by the Center for Applied Policy Research in Livestock, University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, Lahore has been relied upon. Extracts of this research are presented to share important credible information.

Two essential lessons that evolve from this discussion are that the milk price-capping policy must be revisited to align it with a factual position and that import of whey powder should either be banned or import duty be increased to 200%.

According to the policy paper on Whey Imports, “the dairy farming sector is at the verge of devastation due to import of Skimmed Milk Powder and Whey Powder (SMP & WP) from across the globe. The use of SMP&WP in the dairy processing industry, dairy related products, biscuits, sweet making, confectionary industry and tea whitening segment has deprived the local farmers from getting right price of the milk”

“According to the United Nations COMTRADE database, Pakistan imported 35 million Kgs milk powder in 2012 worth $102.1 million, 22 million Kgs in 2013 worth $70.8 million and 34 million Kgs in 2014 worth $117 million. At the same time, Pakistan imported 19.5 million Kgs, 18.3 million Kgs and 20.2 million Kgs of whey powder in 2012, 2013 and 2014 worth $13.4 million, $15 million and $16.9 million respectively”.

“From 2007 onwards there has been a shift in focus of Pakistani dairy processors from selling milk to selling recipe products – made from SMP&WP and Vegetable fat etc. These products are generally called Tea Whiteners and Dairy Liquids”.

“According to estimation by dairy industry experts, in 2014, the share of recipe products (other than milk) in liter-age term has gone up to 59% in total UHT sales while plain white milk is only 41%. Since these recipe products are made using SMP&WP and vegetable oils; for dairy processor the cost of production of these products is far below the raw milk prices, which ultimately deprive dairy farmers of a better price for their raw milk”.

Graph shows growth in UHT sales (million liters annually) increase in the share of other than milk products “It is often propagated that the import of powders is linked with demand and supply gap in the country, however fact of the matter is that import of powders has a clear linkage with prices in international market, i.e. when prices are low in international market, the import increases substantially and vice versa. For example, when price was low at 2300 Euro per Ton in 2012, about 34 Million Kgs of Skimmed Milk Powder (SMP) was imported in Pakistan while in 2013 when price went up to 4200 Euro Per Ton, the import of SMP decreased to 22 million Kgs. In 2014, the price again went to the lowest 2000 Euro per Ton, and the SMP import again jumped to 35 million Kgs”.

In last five years, the cost of production for a dairy farmer has increased at an average of 10 to 15% per annum, while farm gate price increased by less than 5%. Milk purchasers are paging farm gate prices with the milk fabricated by use of SMP&WP. Some of the milk purchasers have reduced their milk procurement drastically as they use SMP&WP instead. This whole situation has put the livelihoods of millions of families at stake. This severely affects the local livestock farmers whose majority is small-scale, landless and is completely dependent on milk sales. It is important to realize that the discouraged farmers are leading towards evaporation of livestock farming”.

“In last two three years many commercial farms sized 50-300 have closed down”.

“If the situation continues and necessary actions are not taken, this is very soon going to lead Pakistan into

deficit of food items including milk and meat, question-marking the food security of the growing population in the country.

On the other hand, it will lead into massive gradual unemployment of the rural population and eventually result in rural to urban migration”.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER COUNTRIES

“Examples from other countries can significantly help in understanding the approach towards this issue. Below are examples from India and Turkey”.

How India Safeguard its local dairy farming?

“In order to safeguard the interest of local dairy farmers in India, the Government of India has imposed 65% import duty on the powder imports besides devising strict quality and hygiene parameters that importers have to comply with. This step has significantly helped Indian dairy farming sector to boost up and bring prosperity in rural areas. It’s also important to mention that farm inputs are also subsidized in India and are much cheaper for the farmers”.

Below is a comparison of various farm inputs both in India and Pakistan in Pak Rs.

“As a result of these steps, India’s export of powder increased from 0.18 million Kgs in 2011 to 152 million Kgs in 2013”

How Turkish Dairy Sector was revolutionized?

“Turkey decided to revolutionize its dairy sector and imposed 180% import duty on milk powders. As a result of this step, huge investments were made in dairy farming locally as much as that over 1.2 million animals were imported between 2009 and 2013. Subsequently, the milk powder imports dropped to almost negligible quantities”.