Intermediate outcome: Production of low-quality milk

The practice of milk adulteration with water introduces more contaminants into the milk – a further addition to the pre-existing contaminants due to low hygiene standard. Since the water added is taken from the same water source used for cleaning the shed or animal, i.e. from well or river, for sure is the bacterial and, to certain extent, chemical contamination magnified.

Thus, the quality of milk adulterated with water is lower than that of unadulterated milk.

The same factors encouraging dairy farmers to adulterate milk – i.e. the absence of price in-centive for high-quality milk, ignorance of both good dairying practices and quality regula-tions, and low awareness of treating milk for human consumption – also encourage them to handle cow and milk with low hygiene standard.

The initial intention of keeping dairy cattle was to produce manure using crop residues, while milk was considered as additional income from keeping cattle – dairy farming was regarded as sideline job. It seems that such intention is still present among dairy farmers, in particular among those who have crop farming as the primary source of income. With such orientation, dairy farmers perceive milk production as a supplementary activity and thus have no particu-lar intention to produce high-quality milk.

As dairy farming is not a traditional profession³⁶, the method of keeping dairy cattle basically follows traditional practices in keeping indigenous cattle with several additional activities in milking. The practices in dairy farming were developed through trials and errors, since there was not any formal introductory training or extension service specifically dealing with dairy farming. The practices were then transmitted primarily through observation, imitation, inter-action, and exchange of experiences among dairy farmers. With increasing number of dairy farmers adopting the practices over time, they are established as ‘common practices’.

Figure 10-11 Intermediate outcome: Production of low-quality milk Source: own compilation

For dairy farmers, the common practices serve as an orientation that defines how dairy farm-ing should be practiced. As an orientation, common practices are thus hardly put into question

36 See Sub-chapter 10.2.1.4 for the cultural-cognitive aspect: dairy farmer as a profession.

whether they are correct and already optimal, whether further improvements are necessary – they are taken for granted: during discussions with dairy farmers about why they are doing certain practices and why they are not doing other practices, the typical answer given was

“that is how we do things here” or “that is what usual here”. Such responses reflected the high degree of internalisation of the practices into their cognitive pattern.

Examples of common practices related to hygiene are³⁷: using cooking oil or soap as lubricant in milking process, piling-up manure in the milking area for months before cleaned, using plastic bucket or jerry can to store milk – all are detrimental to hygiene. Such practices, albeit inappropriate, have been repeated over time and thus habitualised³⁸. Once practices became habit, they are more difficult to change, since a particular characteristic of a habit is its inertia.

Of high importance in attaining acceptable hygiene standard is the adequate availability of water. This, unfortunately, is not the case in several areas of the lesser performing interaction system, especially during dry seasons. Particularly in areas with higher altitude, ground-water level can reach more than 50 m beneath the earth surface and thereby making the pumping difficult and costly, at least for individual dairy farmer. Water sources are available, but not many, and they usually dry out during the dry season. Therefore, since the household also has needs for water, dairy farmers have limited water available for cleaning the shed and cows.

Apart from limited water resource, the availability of feedstuff, particularly green forage, is restricted in dry season. Dairy farmers have to buy additional water and green forage which are costly and thus create additional burden for the household. These, however, are required for sustaining the current level of hygiene and productivity. Therefore, for those dairy farmers with severely limited working capital, spending more money – and thus higher risk for the livelihood situation – for purchasing water and green forage is not a feasible option. As a re-sult, they opt for an alternative which is viable with the restricted conditions, i.e. changing the orientation from milk production unto calf rearing. Dairy farmers buy young calves and then feed them with the milk produced by the dairy cow they already have – thus ‘suckler cow’. As

37 See Moran (2007) for an elaborate description of the technical conditions of dairy farming in Indonesia.

38 Of course, common practices are not merely a repetition and widespread acceptance of ‘meaningless’ actions;

they are in fact ‘meaningful’ solutions build on the subjective perception of individuals which in turn are shaped by the specific circumstances e.g. limited resource availability and limited information.

the milk is used for feeding calves, lower hygiene standard and lower milk productivity are still acceptable. The milk reminder – in a small amount and low quality – not used for calf feeding is sold to the cooperative.

For the dairy farmers, such practice is indeed a good solution for the limited availability of water and forages as well as the limited working capital. But for the VUCs and the dairy value chain, such practice cannot provide a sound basis for the production of raw material of high-quality fresh milk in adequate quantity and continuity.