The country will achieve self-sufficiency in milk production by 2016 with the current production increasing to one million litres per day which is 50 percent of the national requirement.

According to the Secretary to the Ministry of Livestock and Rural Community Development Dr. K.M.T. Kendaragama, the Ministry has launched a campaign to promote liquid milk consumption among people.

In keeping with the Mahinda Chintana program to make the country self-sufficient in milk, the Cabinet recently decided to purchase all milk produce of dairy farmers. Consequently MILCO purchases all milk produced, Kendaragama said.

MILCO which has installed modern machinery to process and store the milk is widening its liquid milk distribution network throughout the country to address malnutrition, especially among the rural community, in collaboration with the Ministry of Livestock and Rural Community Development.

Artificial insemination to produce milch cows, the import of high quality milch cows for distribution among farmers and bank loan schemes to help farmers to enhance their production capacity are some of the programs being implemented by the Ministry, Kendaragama said.