After months of staying in the doldrums, dairy major Aavin’s procurement figures touched 31.26 lakh litres on Sunday. Of this, 29.21 lakh litres went towards milk sales with Chennai and suburbs accounting for 13.85 lakh litres and the rest of the State buying 15.36 lakh litres.
Over the past month, milk procurement had been slowly climbing up and had hovered around 30 lakh litres per day (LLPD). On June 17, Aavin sold 14.97 lakh litres in Chennai and 15.48 lakh litres in the rest of the State.
Milk industry insiders said that with temperatures reducing, calving had increased and private dairies too had reduced procurement prices. These were the contributing factors for the increase in milk production, they explained.
Dairy farmers said that if the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers Federation, whose popular brand is Aavin, would provide cattle feed at subsidised rates, procurement would increase further. Dairy farmers said the cost of production per litre of milk was ₹51.
“Private dairies pay us ₹40 which is not sufficient to cover our expenses. If cattle feed is given, it will help farmers very much,” said a dairy farmer. This would help keep milk-pouring farmers in the Aavin fold.
