Dairy farmers in St Thomas are set to benefit from Serge Island Dairies Limited’s expansion thrust as the company moves to boost milk production through its investment in chill storage facilities.

“The farmers can milk the cow, it’s chilled, our truck comes and unload the milk and deliver to the processing plant and maintain the quality throughout,” explained PB Scott, chairman of Serge Island parent company Seprod.

The programme, he said, is working now in St Thomas but is also being extended to St Elizabeth.

According to Scott, there is now renewed interest in the dairy industry as the price of milk subsidy is on par with that of whole milk.

“From a price point of view, the dairy industry is now a lot more competitive than it was vis-a-vis the milk powder and this has driven demand,” Scott told the Observer North East.

He noted that the production of milk overall is increasing and Serge Island is expanding to meet this demand as it is not only about increasing the number of cows but the amount of milk each animal produces daily.

Serge Island will be able to buy even more milk from small farmers as it now looks to enter the whipping cream market.

Whipping cream comes from skimming the fat off the milk which is sold as one per cent milk. That fat is then used to produce whipping cream. Currently, this skimmed fat is used in making ice cream bases, which are sold to other manufacturers.

Scott said his company would like to see even more dairy farmers returning to the sector despite the long time span for cows to mature.

“It takes a little time and it’s an investment, so we are actively engaging in a farmer programme to develop a significant amount of outreach programme extension farming into rural Jamaica, throughout the country, and it’s key for us to build out our capacity in that form because dairy farming really requires the ability to deliver milk to the processor in a timely manner in order to maintain quality control throughout the chain,” he said.

Serge Island Dairies General Manager Marvin Cummings said the company has the capacity to triple the volume of milk that it currently purchases from small farmers. This is in addition to the fact that the company breeds its own cattle to supply 90 per cent of the milk it uses in production.

However, Cummings said there is an inhibition to more farmers entering the sector as the wait time from calves to milk-producing cows can take up to three years

“The demand is really here for milk products because a lot of dairy farmers went out of business,” he said.

Serge Island Dairies is, however, seeking to rectify this problem as the demand for whole milk increases.

This as the St Thomas-based Serge Island Dairies is working with the Jamaica Dairy Development Board and the Ministry of Finance and Agriculture through a World Bank project to revitalise the sector.

“Our role as a private sector is to guarantee that everything the farmers produce will be taken up and put in the value-added chain,” said Richard Pandohie, chief executive officer of Seprod.

Pandohie, who was speaking with the Jamaica Observer North East following a recent tour of the factory to view a newly acquired Tetra Pak filling machine, said what the small farmers are producing is minimal, hence the company takes the bulk of whatever they are able to produce.

This has also forced the company to look outside of St Thomas to meet the current demand for milk.

“Right now, it is under 72 small farmers we are buying from and we buy everything (and so) we are picking up milk as far as Manchester and beyond,” he said, adding, “We have the capacity to produce, the capacity in demand, the capacity to export because everything that we get goes straight into an end product.”

Pandohie said this is the reason for Serge Island now working with the Dairy Development Board to establish the infrastructure needed to produce quality milk. He noted that this is not for an individual with five or 10 cows but preferably a cluster of 100 to 150 cows.

“The milk is sensitive, so it has to be stored and treated properly for pick up, so you can’t go around picking up milk in buckets. That is what we are trying to work on by putting in clusters throughout the country where these small farmers in the clusters supply milk into these tanks and we are picking up from them,” he told the Observer North East.

He explained that the liberalisation with milk powder had really disseminated the sector, but there is now a lot of renewed interest. This, he said, is as a result of the fact that the price for milk powder has gone up significantly with the demand from China and beyond, which has made that price differential not as high as it used to be.

Meanwhile, Pandohie said Serge Island is also working with the Ministry of Agriculture to put in place a programme to purchase fruits in season to convert them to pulp for some of its juices.

One of the largest employers in St Thomas, Serge Island Dairies currently has 130 workers while its dairy farms employ 120. Its employment rate in the parish is only second to another subsidiary in the Seprod Group — Golden Grove Sugar Company. Some 80 per cent of Serge Island’s workforce comes from the parish.

During the tour, junior minister in the Ministry of Agriculture Luther Buchanan expressed satisfaction that Seprod has been investing in the modernisation and redevelopment of the dairy industry.

He noted that the investment of US$3.5 million for the new Tetra Pak filling machine will go a long way in boosting efficiency at Serge Island and contribute to the spinoff effects in employment and help to increase the demand for more inputs from local farmers.

“This fits right into the ministry’s Dairy Development Programme being implemented by the Jamaica Dairy Development Board,” he said, adding that the board has been successful with several of its programmes, including the promotion and support of good agricultural practices on dairy farms.

Other initiatives to date, Buchanan said, include the disbursement of over $71 million through a concessionary loan facility for dairy and beef cattle; and expansion of the Fodder Bank Programme.

“In addition to the fodder banks, some $20.5 million of equipment, including forage harvesters, chaffers and motors, have been provided to assist farmers with the effective utilisation of the harvested fodder,” Buchanan said.

The ministry, he said, has also identified the glaring need to involve more young people in its dairy development programme.

“Our dairy farmers are ageing, and it is critical, but we involve our young people in the rejuvenation and survival of the sector,” he said.

To this end, Buchanan said work has started with the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE) in Portland and other tertiary institutions such as Knockalva and Sydney Pagon agriculture schools to revamp and upgrade their dairy programme with equipment, technical support and stock through the Dairy Board.

He also commended Serge Island Dairies for its assistance in donating 25 Jamaica Hope heifers to CASE. Included in the equipment provided to CASE is a pasteuriser and supporting equipment to ensure that the milk produced at CASE will be safe for use in the school feeding programme.

“We note that Serge Island not only produces milk, but importantly fruit juices, and as you seek to diversify your range and to introduce more local flavours, I wish to encourage you to work with the farmers of this and the adjoining parishes of Portland and St Andrew to include the seasonal fruits, such as the abundance of mangoes and pineapples, grown in these parishes,” the junior minister said.