Head of the Presidential Task Force for Economic Revival and Poverty Alleviation, Basil Rajapaksa, recently attended an observation tour of the Watawala Dairy Farm in Lonach Estate, Ginigathena.
The state-of-the-art dairy farm by Watawala Dairy Limited (WDL), a 100% subsidiary of Sri Lanka’s leading diversified agribusiness company Watawala Plantations, manages a herd of 1, 600 dairy cattle with an ultramodern milking parlour which can produce over 6 million litres of fresh milk annually (17,000 litres of fresh milk per day).
Rajapaksa commended Watawala Plantations on its successful dairy operations and its contribution to the economy by committing to the government’s effort to promote local milk production and achieve self-sufficiency in milk. He also praised the company’s efforts in allocating small areas of lands to families to cultivate the land and supply the farms with maize, grass and other input materials, as an additional source of income.
The farm, with the help of advanced technology, processes the cattle feed by wholly utilising the corn of maize. Rajapaksa noted that this initiative has helped to increase the income level of farmers who provide maize to the farm.
He also suggested evaluating new revenue streams to develop sustainable agribusiness practices, including the production of biogases and carbonic fertiliser using cow dung. WDL aims to drive sustainable production of fresh milk in Sri Lanka and the company is conscious that healthy husbandry that covers sound animal health and welfare underpins high yields and quality of milk.
The farm provides facilities to a nourishing herd with feed supplements scientifically formulated by a global expert nutritionist with the construction of its feed mill to process the special cattle feed. Stringent hygiene farm management controls have been implemented within the farm, conforming to international standards.
WDL also has a fully computerised, automated, state of the art milking parlour system from a globally renowned supplier which is capable of monitoring the progress of each animal’s yield and quality of milk produced. Sensors are clipped to the ear of each heifer to measure temperature, activity, resting time, rumination time, feeding behaviour, facilitating better care over the welfare of each cow.
Some of the key initiatives towards ensuring sustainability include flaring of methane gas trapped from the waste management system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, production of biogas from cattle waste to support energy needs, distribution of milk to schools, upgrading the water distribution schemes for villages around the farm and infrastructure development.
Sunshine Holdings Group Managing Director Vish Govindasamy, Watawala Plantations Chief Executive Officer Binesh Pananwala and few other officials from WDL accompanied Rajapaksa during his visit.
