Concurring with National Milk Day on June 1, 2010, Faculty of Animal Science of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) held a seminar entitled "Only Fresh Milk for Me". The seminar presented two speakers and was attended by teachers and parents of kindergarten and elementary schools, Agriculture Office of Sleman Regency and Yogyakarta, lecturers as well as students.
The speakers, Ir. Bugi Rustamaji, M.Sc discussed “Milk: the Promising White Gold” and dr. Emi Huriyati, M.Kes., presented the topic of "The Importance of Milk for Child Intelligence and Growth." The event at the Faculty of Animal Science was enlivened with “drink fresh milk” campaign for children in kindergartens and elementary schools as well as the distribution of fresh pasteurized milk. Nurliyani, a member of the committee from Livestock Products Technology Division said that the celebration of the National Milk Day was to mark the World Milk Day, which is the FAO program. The world milk day celebration reminds people around the world to consume milk for the body.
"The establishment of this national milk day is based on the low milk consumption rate in Indonesia, which is caused by the lack of awareness of the milk benefits in addition to the belief that milk is an expensive commodity," said Nurliyani.
In her view, Indonesian milk consumption is still low compared to other Asian countries. Compared to Malaysia’s consumption of 30 liters and Vietnam 12 liters per capita per year, Indonesia has only reached 10 liters per capita per day or 55 glasses per capita per year. With a population totalling 225 million, Indonesia has yet to fulfil the national dairy fresh milk of 6,4 million liters/day. While the current national milk production is only able to meet 23,45% or 2,1%/capita/year of the national needs, the remaining 76,55% is still imported. "Based on the fact, the National Milk Day is expected to trigger the dairy farmers to produce more milk that has better quality. Hopefully, the program will increase dairy milk production, so Indonesia does not have to import milk," she said.
Furthermore, she hopes the National Milk Day declaration can be utilized as a large umbrella for activities that can improve the national dairy products. The Indonesian government also expects that fresh milk consumption can increase to 40% of domestic milk demands in 2014. This, of course, requires the production of milk in the country to be fulfilled up to as much as 2,9 million liters/day from 290 thousand lactation dairy cows (from 530 thousand populations of dairy cows). Meanwhile, for the next five years, Indonesian Agriculture Department has programmed an additional 100,000 lactation cows. So, the National Milk Day establishment is expected to impact on the improvement of nutrition and to make a healthy and productive society, and to pave up opportunities for fresh milk production increase. "Hopefully, these can improve the welfare of dairy farmers, allowing them the opportunity to develop animal husbandry and milk processing industry in the country," she concluded.