Dairy buffalo plan
The Agricultural Land Reform Office is encouraging farmers to raise water buffaloes for their milk rather than for meat or for ploughing paddy fields.
Secretary-general Anant Phusitthikul said last week that a pilot project had distributed 200 buffaloes to farmers belonging to the Nong Mai Kaen Cooperative in Chachoengsao. All the buffaloes are Murrah, an Indian breed.The government also helped the farmers set up the Murrah Dairy Co to produce fresh milk, yoghurt and mozzarella cheese. "The products have already been launched in the local market, and that has drawn more farmers to raise buffaloes for milk. The animal has great economic potential animal," he said. Twenty of the buffaloes are already yielding 90-110 kilograms of milk per day, sold to local dairies at for Bt80 per kilogram, Bt11-Bt12.50 more than cow's milk. Deja Wilawan, the provincial land-reform officer, said farmers had crossed the local breed with the Murrah to produce a buffalo that survives better in the Thai climate and produces milk for 270 days longer than the local breed. Buffalo milk is highly nutritious with up to 4.5 per cent protein by weight, compared with 3.2 for cow's milk and 3.1 for goat's milk, according to the Livestock Development Department. This suits it for producing cheese. It takes only five kilograms of buffalo milk to make one kilogram of cheese, as opposed to eight kilograms of cow's milk. Buffalo milk contains 58 per cent more calcium than cow's milk but has lower cholesterol, about 0.65 milligrams per gram. The breeding of buffaloes has also boosted the hay and manure markets.
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