The trend in the recent times is to wean away from the high cost-inputs in milk business and to switch over to low-input-dung business, sources among private diary enterprises told The Financial Express. One, Keralites are poor milk consumers compared to people of other states. Against the national per capita consumption of 250 gm, the state's per capita daily consumption is only 180 gm. Two, while low-priced milk from neighbouring states easily drives out high quality milk produced at heavy expense, keeping 10 cows could yield a pain-free Rs 1.6 lakh per year, by supplying dung to the expanding manure market.

Although the state government has been fervent about effecting a white revolution, this has largely remained wistful thinking. While the national average of daily milk yield from a cow has been 10 litres, in Kerala the daily average milk yield per cow has refused to budge beyond six litres. In the last 10 months alone, there has been innovative schemes like milkingmachines to beat the scarcity of milking labourers and professionals with cattle-insemination kits regularly visiting the dairies to optimise the breeding technique.

In a recent spurt of veterinary fitness awareness, the Government has set up 13 mobile hospitals, including two boat hospitals to the ultimate effect that one out of seven veterinary hospitals in the country is in Kerala.Ironically, it is the high awareness on health and quality inputs that has caused the milk pricing to slip from Kerala diary entrepreneurs, said an industry source. Even as the state government has made a deliberate move for a legislation for slapping 10 per cent entry tax on milk from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to save Kerala State Milk Marketing Federation (Milma) from losses, the fact remains that the state produces only 60 per cent of the cattle feed concentrates necessary to feed its 33.96 lakh cattle( 1996 Census). With Kerala's lean to cash crops, the pastures have shrinked making the cattle more and more dependent on feed concentrates. For milk production to be profitable, a good two-third of the 68.5 lakh tones feed concentrates at present consumed by the Kerala cattle should be replaced by paddy straw.