Milk and meat production: Weak value chain fails to ensure quality

Al Mamun Harun Ur Rashid :
Bangladesh is on the way to achieve self-sufficiency in milk and meat production – a main source for protein, but the quality and safety of animal originated products are still vulnerable due to the existence of a weak value chain.
Experts said that traditional methods of production, collection and procession of milk and meats cannot guarantee safety and quality of these products if a single chain is broken.
Processing of meat in an unhygienic environment and selling it for human consumption poses a threat to human health and the environment also degrades for dumping animal wastes here and there, they observed.
Milk and meat are highly perishable items and lose their nutrients if not properly and effectively processed and preserved, animal nutritionists said.
If unsafe and poor quality milk and meat are consumed for a long time, it will not fulfill nutrients needed for the human body and ultimately the Sustainable Development Goals for good health will be hampered and Bangladesh will become a nation with poor health, they added.
Keeping all these challenges in mind, the government, especially the Livestock and Dairy Development Project (LDDP) is working to ensure the value chain for safe and quality milk and meat for consumers.
They said that the entire value chain of the existing livestock include on-farm production, marketing and processing of animal products like milk, and their sale to the market should be mordernised to ensure the safety and quality.
“We are making remarkable production of milk, meat and egg to ensure protein for human health. But we cannot ignore its safety and quality. Only consumption of quality and safe food can make a healthy nation,” Dr Mohammad Shakif-Ul-Azam, LDDP Deputy Project Director told the New Nation recently.
According to the Department of Livestock Services (DLS), currently the annual demand of milk is 156.68 lakh metric tonnes (MT) whereas the production is 130.74 lakh MT and the demand for meat is 75.20 lakh MT while production is 92.65 lakh MT.
“In the traditional wet market, animals are slaughtered and skinned mostly on the unhygienic open floor, meats are frequently cut on wooden boards without proper disinfecting and then it is hooked for open display before selling for hours. It cannot ensure the safety and hygiene of meats,” Shafik-Ul-Azam said.
In a bid to address this issue, the LDDP is going to install modern slaughterhouses in three metropolitan cities – Chattogram, Rajshahi and Khulnam and in 20 other districts and in 170 Upazilas with the financial support of the World Bank.
Already 15 slaughterhouses in Dinajpur, Rangpur, Noakhali, Cumilla, Chapainawabganj, Lalmonirhat, Kushtia, Jhenaidah, Sylhet, Gopalganj, Munshiganj, Joypurhat, Bogura, Pabna and Kurigram districts have obtained environmental clearance certificates to proceed.
“We want to create awareness among the meat sellers and provide them with technological support. How long we will follow the traditional method of slaughtering animals. We are installing modern slaughterhouses/slabs to ensure safe meat and to protect the environment from pollution,” Dr Golam Rabbani, LDDP Chief Technical Coordinator, said.
Regarding the modern slaughterhouse, he said, “The meat will be processed through a number of stages including cooling chain in a modernised method to maintain the quality and safety.”
About the full operation of the slaughterhouses, he said, “It will take approximately two years to bring the slaughterhouses into full operation. As it is new and modern for us, we have to go through a trial and error process.”
Along with meat, the LDDP is also working in the backward linkage with farmers and forward linkage with business entrepreneurs for the safety and quality of milk production and milk originated foods.
As milk harvesting process is still practiced traditionally through hand instead of machine, it cannot guarantee safety and quality, experts said.
“Hand milking is not fully hygienic. Contamination of milk begins from teat, milker’s hands, milk buckets, environment of the milk barn, etc. Soon after drawing the milk, it should be stored at a chilling temperature (0-4 degree C). But in reality it is not followed and then milk quality keeps falling,” Misbahuzzaman Chandan, Food Safety and Quality Control Expert, said.
He also said that farmers use banana and hyacinth leaves for milk preservation purposes before transporting it from the farm to the milk collection or chilling center.
“It takes a long time to reach the collection centre and the quality of milk keeps falling on the way. This way of milk collection cannot ensure the safety and quality of the products,” he added.
LDDP officials said that they were providing logistic support to the marginal farmers to form value chain based 5,500 producer groups (PGs)- each group of 20-40 members across the country.
“We will set up 400 village milk collection centres and 20 milk hubs in different parts of the country to provide easy access to farmers to sell milk at fair price. Milk collection through this process will be safe as quality and safety will be maintained strictly,” Golam Rabbani said.
“We get eggs, meat and milk by investment. If we cannot make these products safe ultimately, all our efforts will end in failure,” he added.
“The food safety issue starts from the feeds the animal consumes. Then it goes through different levels like production, collection, storage, transportation, processing and packaging before consumption. Safety can be endangered at any stage as it is a multi-stakeholder issue,” he pointed out.
 “LDDP is working in backward linkage to ensure quality feeds for animals as safety of animal originated products depends on safe feeds. So, feed management is very important. For it, we have created PGs for awareness among farmers,” he added.
“Consumer’s awareness is important. If sellers do not get consumers, the business will not flourish and entrepreneurs will lose their investment. So LDDP is also working on the forward linkage to create entrepreneurs and market access”, Golam Rabbani said.
About the quality of animal originated food, Dr Mohammad Al-Mamun, Professor of the Department of Animal Nutrition, Bangladesh Agricultural University said, “The use of low anti-biotic and low vaccine dose in animal health has to be ensured for quality and safe animal originated products. So, more research work is necessary here.”
“Only high production of egg, meat and milk cannot ensure proper nutrients for the human body. Safety and quality are a crucial issue now as safe food boosts our immune system and increases life expectancy,” he added.
Stakeholders said that the future generations would not be satisfied with the product’s expiry date only, rather they would want to know about the product’s nutritional value and its safety. So the current generation should leave a legacy of safe animal originated products for the future ones.