FOOD/INVESTIGATION

While urban areas consume 52 per cent of the total milk, rural regions use the rest. The unorganised sector, comprising milkmen and contractors, cater to 60 per cent of the milk in urban areas. But how good is the milk that we consume?

There are times when milk comes from sick animals under heavy antibiotic treatment. Most farmers CSE spoke to did not know about withdrawal period—this is the time after the last day an antibiotic is administered and before the milk is sold. Farmers must not sell milk cattle during this period as it can increase chances of antibiotic residues in milk.

“I sell milk irrespective of the ongoing antibiotic treatment,” says Subhash Chandila, who owns 12 Murrah buffaloes in Badoli village of Faridabad, Haryana. Jitender Yadav, who has a dairy in Noida, wonders how farmers would sustain themselves if they do not earn for the 7-15 days of treatment and withdrawal period. Mohan Tyagi of Dhaulpur in Uttar Pradesh admits he has sold such milk to Parag, the state cooperative’s brand. Arjun Jat, too, used to milk the animals during treatment. But Saras, Rajasthan’s cooperative brand, whom he sold milk to, asked not to do so.

Consuming milk drawn during withdrawal period can lead to against antibiotics because the antibiotics exert selection pressure among the gut bacteria in humans. Studies show that boiling or pasteurisation milk may not completely eliminate antibiotics. A 2019 Bangladesh Agricultural University research found that even after boiling milk at 100°C for 20 minutes, there was no change in the status of residual amoxicillin, oxytetracycline and ciprofloxacin. No effect of pasteurisation on cloxacillin residues in milk was observed in a study led by West Bengal University of Animal and Fisheries Sciences in India.

PROBING COMPANIES

CSE reached out to milk federations and found that most dairy cooperatives only occasionally tested milk for antibiotic residues. The coorperatives serve 80 per cent of the consumers with packaged milk and retail products. These follow a three-tier structure—dairy cooperative societies in the villages, district-level milk unions and a state-level milk federation as the apex. Milk collected from farmers at a dairy cooperative society is stored in bulk coolers and transported in tankers to the districtlevel processing plants.

Historically, milk federations have focussed more on removing

said. However, when CSE asked Amul to share the test reports, the company did not respond.

The Malabar Regional Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union (MRCMPU), which operates under Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, claimed to perform tests at three levels—daily from tanker samples, once in two months at society level, and also at individual farmer level for root cause investigation. When asked what is done in case antibiotics are detected in tested samples, James K C, senior manager at MRCMPU, said:

“We have a traceability mechanism in place to trace the farmer.”

“Our workers in villages know the probable source of contamination. If found guilty, the provider is warned. If he repeats, he is removed from the list of registered farmers,” says an official from plant operations division at Sanchi, indicating that tests are done only when doubts are raised.

CSE also reached out to other leading brands like Mother Dairy and private brands such as Nestle and Gopaljee. Nestle claimed milk processessed and sold by them is tested by both qualitative and quantitative methods at NABL

accredited labs.

When lab test reports were requested, the representative called to say the company does not share them. Mother Dairy and Gopaljee did not respond at all.

FSSAI has recently approved three kits for antibiotic detection and released Scheme of Testing and Inspection (STI) of milk for dairy processing. As per STI,

antibiotics and veterinary drug residues will be monitored at two inspection points. But the frequ