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Milk of Elco infected

animals harmful

for human health

KARACHI: The use of injections in the milking animals to increase milk production is harmful for human consumption, General Secretary of Sindh Milk Producers Association, Alay Ahmed, said here on Sunday.

Talking about the use of chemicals in the milk and milk products, he said the use of Elco injection is very common among the milk producers and dairy farmers. This injection stimulates the Gonds, responsible for releasing hormones that activate milk production, he explained.

Replying to a question, he said there are very few dairy farmers who acquire the services of veterninary doctors and most of the treatment is carried out on self prescription basis. However, traditional veterinary dealers are also available in the vicinity, he added.

He said the Elco injection is available in drug stores and one can purchase it without prescription. The drug passes on to the milk consumers and is not considered good for human health, he opined.

Responding to another query about the preservation of milk during transportation from the source to the market/retail point, especially in the absence of air-conditioned milk containers, he said the preservers are used by the package milk producers to increase the shelf life of their product.

The shelf of life of the open milk is very limited and it is increased by boiling the same by the middle or end consumers. Except for the packaging milk sector, no one has air-conditioned containers but use ordinary chilling technique for avoiding fermentation while transporting the milk from source to the end user.

He claimed that the milk is chilled by the basic collector in interior Sindh and transported to the Lea Market. The chilling increases the shelf life of milk from few hourer (36 hours), he claimed.

He said the Sindh milk producers supply around 0.45 million liters per day whereas the Landhi dairy farmers sell around 1.9 million liters of milk per day in Karachi. The rate of the Sindh milk producers product is around Rs. 10 per liter in the wholesale market and Rs. 12 in the retail but milk from Landhi which is sold at the same rate for the last several months is sold at Rs. 22 at the retail end.

He alleged that the Landhi milk producers have been trying to block the sale of the milk brought from interior Sindh by making negative propaganda. He added that the only intention behind the negative propaganda is to establish their monopoly for raising the price of their products. The changes of such a monopoly has been ruled out with the arrival of packaging milk and dry milk, he said.

Alay Ahmed said that SMPA has urged the authorities to revise the milk retail price downward and make it realistic to ensure that the reduction in the cost of cattle breeding/farms in puts is duly passed on to the consumers and check the immoderate profit of over 100 percent by the retailers.

"We have failed to convince the authorities to re-fix the price of milk at the retail end and the milk sellers continue to pocket around 100 percent profit," he deplored.ÑAPP