'Parallel' college pioneer Nair sees opportunity in micro dairies

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: College kids and cattle are as different as chalk and cheese, but the pioneer of ‘parallel college’ education in Kerala, Achuthan Nair, is proving that he can help make cheese as well as he could handle chalk.

For many decades when the licensing system put a constraint on the availability of regular college seats, Achuthan Nair and his friend Balakrishnan Nair pioneered the ‘parallel’ college education in Kerala. That experiment shook the higher education model in the state, enabling thousands to graduate through the duo’s ‘Our College’, which at one time had over 10,000 students spread across its different campuses in the state.

Achuthan Nair’s family continues to have an interest in the education sector, with his son AL Pradeep taking over as managing director of Our College which now runs two regular colleges, but Nair sees a new prospect in micro-dairy farming.

From his little dairy at Vellayambalam in the heart of Kerala’s capital city, Nair and his wife Lalithavathi Amma supply roughly 150 litres of milk daily to local residents, who queue up to get fresh milk in preference to branded milk that come in plastic sachets.

“There is a huge demand for fresh milk as awareness is growing about the chemicals that go into most of the branded milk varieties”, says Nair, adding that wherever there is a pressure on pastureland, like most urban areas do, micro-dairy farms would be the right intervention to solve the milk muddle.

Nair says increasingly protective parents are keen that their children get unadulterated milk to drink, but such supplies are a luxury in most urban areas, where chemicals-laced milk is what the average consumer can hope for.

Milk production has increased relevance for Kerala at the moment in the backdrop of a declining domestic production and the unwillingness of neighbouring states to supply milk. Earlier this month, Tamil Nadu cut milk supplies to the state, from roughly 1.05 lakh litres per day (lpd) to about 65,000 lpd, through the Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (Milma). Maharashtra’s supplies to Kerala have fallen from 2 lakh lpd to about 70,000 lpd, and Karnataka has completely suspended its daily supply of 2.8 lakh litres of milk to Kerala.

Per capita availability of milk in Kerala at 182 g/day was the lowest among southern states in 2007-08, and was far below that of national leader Punjab where availability was 962 g/day, according to the state Planning Board’s estimates.

KCMMF’s procurement and sale of milk in the state reflect the widening gap between demand and supply. As against its sale of 10.65 lakh per day over the first 9 days this month, the domestic procurement in the state was only 5.93 lakh litres per day, leaving a deficit of 4.74 lakh litres to be covered by imports from other states.

Against that backdrop, Nair is convinced that the solution for the urban milk conundrum lies in micro-dairies. Nair’s cows listen to FM radio, have fans in the manger and lie on rubber mats. For these perks, they earn decent profits for him, and he believes that should be incentive enough for the spread of the micro-dairy culture. End