Dutch Mill to improve quality

Dutch Mill to improve quality

Dutch Mill Group, one of Thailand's leading dairy manufacturers and distributors, is partnering with the Agriculture Ministry to supply milk from the firm's contracted farms.

Workers at Dutch Mill pour milk into a vat. A new agreement with the Agriculture Ministry will attempt to bring its dairies up to international quality standards. The company will ensure milk collection centres have quality inspections at least four times a month, send teams to support farmers and involve staff in the development of collection centres.

The collaboration is aimed at improving the competitiveness of the dairy industry ahead of the Asean Economic Community's launch in 2016.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed on Thursday, both parties will maximise their efforts to enhance dairy production efficiency across the system, from upstream to downstream processes.

Vice-president Pornchai Sawadsuksobchai said the agreement includes implementation of a pilot project among his company's contracted 3,587 dairy farms that supply raw milk to the group.

The programme will help dairy farmers to achieve international quality standards and increase raw milk output to 15 kilogrammes per cow per day within three years, he said. The industry average is 13 kg.

The scheme, which runs until the end of 2015, is aimed at having all 18 milk collection centres achieve the Good Manufacturing Practice standard while enabling at least 70% of all contracted farms to meet the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) standard.

Mr Pornchai said the efforts will help Dutch Mill, a wholly owned Thai company, to become one of the leading dairy production and marketing firms in Asean.

Chavalit Chookachorn, deputy agriculture permanent secretary, said the Livestock Development Department will provide expert advice and training in forage and dairy herd management and send mobile units to support farmers.

It will also provide expert advice and training to help farms to achieve GAP certification.

The Dairy Farming Promotion Organization of Thailand will conduct training courses for new dairy farmers and advanced training courses for existing ones, while the Cooperative Promotion Department will give financial support for dairy cooperatives to upgrade their operations to meet the GAP standard.

The key role of Dutch Mill is to ensure milk collection centres have quality inspections at least four times a month, send teams to support farmers and involve staff in the development of collection centres.

The group will also offer higher buy-in prices for raw milk that achieves quality standards. Farmers currently receive 19 baht per kg.

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