Abstract

Despite the fact that the production of milk has been increased over the past
four decades, our country, Malaysia is yet to meet the huge demand of dairy
products among the consumers. The amount of the locally produced milk in our
dairy production sector is so insignificant as it can only support around 5
percent of the domestic needs. Not to mention that most of the dairy products
in the Malaysia’s market such as cheeses, yoghurt, ice-cream and fluid milk
available are reconstituted from the imported dairy powder. Thus, Malaysia
relies heavily on imports from Australia, New Zealand and United States to
satisfy its increasing domestic demands for dairy products. Besides that,
according to the statistic provided by Malaysian Agricultural Research and
Development Institute (MARDI), it is said that the current import value for dairy
products has rises to 1.2 billion ringgit per year compare to the 69 million ringgit
per year in the 1970s as the consumption of dairy products among the
consumers in Malaysia has increased up to 33%. So, some of the research has
proved that that the amount of dairy products consumption has risen from the
usual 32.9kg per capita to 43.5kg per capita in the recent years. Other than that,
it is said that uprising demand of the dairy products in Malaysia are caused by
increasing awareness of the nutritional values of dairy products among the
consumers.

Keywords: Dairy products, milk consumption, consumers, Malaysia

Milk’s History

As the concept of domesticating and milking animals spread from the Middle
East, farmers adopted local beasts as their milk-giving ruminant of choice.
Depending on things like climate, geography, and population, various regions
favored yaks, buffalo, cows, and sheep. All have their own special adaptations
that make them better for certain environments and needs. Cows, for instance,
were domesticated from long-horned wild aurochs around the same time and
place as goats. Since at least 3,000 B.C.E. they've been bred primarily for their
milk, which is richer than goats' and due to their size, more abundant. However,
as heavy eaters with a grass diet, cows really work best in temperate climates.
Modern European cows are much smaller than their auroch ancestors, primarily
because in captivity, the winter food supply was far less abundant. There is one
notable exception to the ruminant rule, however: the camel. The only milkable
domesticated animal that isn't a ruminant, camels were particularly adapted to
arid, desert regions, and as such, their milk has been a staple food in parts of
Africa since 2500 B.C.E.

Amazingly, China is one of the very few Old World societies that didn't develop
some sort of reliance on milk. Most likely, this had more to do with the local flora
than a dislike for dairy. Much of the natural vegetation in China, particularly
during the ruminants' rise, consisted of poisonous plants like wormwood and
epazote, making it unsuitable for grazing. However, when nomads, and later
Mongolians, came bearing milk, the Chinese were quick to take up the beverage.
By 1300 B.C.E. they were using milk to dilute their tea.
Cheese’s History

Once you have yogurt, it's easy to get cheese. All you have to do is drain the
watery natural yogurt, separating solid curd from liquid whey. Then it's just a
matter of salting the curd. Although the method has been refined and increased
in complexity since, this is basically how the earliest cheese was made.

By 2000 B.C.E. cheese had become a luxury item in Egypt, with the recipes
heavily guarded by priests and manufacturing scenes appearing in murals
decorating kingly burials. It's no wonder the product only became more beloved
from there. For the ancient Greeks, cheese was the food of athletes. Romans,
picking up on Greek tradition, gave each of their soldiers a daily 1-ounce cheese
ration. And in Europe, cheese-making branched into a thousand local specialties
that incorporated regional products and production secrets. For instance, real
mozzarella, i.e. mozzarella di bufala, is made in the Capagna region south of
Rome from the milk supplied by the 100,000 descendants of a herd of buffalo
brought to Italy in 700 C.E.
Yoghurt’s History

Like butter, yoghurt is also likely an accidental food. Let' go back to those
original shepherds and farmers, carrying milk around in skin pouches. If they
were to skim off the cream or, alternately, remove the lump of butter the cream
had formed, they'd be left with "skimmed" milk. Without refrigeration and under
the blazing Middle Eastern sun, it wouldn't have taken long for this milk to turn
acidic, ferment, and curdle. The result: yogurt.

Another great way to preserve the nutrients from milk, yogurt could then be
sun-dried or stored fresh under a layer of oil. And, long before the health food
craze hit the U.S., yogurt fans were already extolling its medicinal properties. A
medical text dating to 633 C.E. dubbed yogurt therapeutic. In fact, yogurt was
introduced to Europe by a Turkish doctor as a medical treatment, and it saved
the life of French king Francis I (curing him of his stomach troubles) in the 16th
century.
Butter’s History

Almost as soon as humans began relying on milk for sustenance, they were
faced with another problem: How to make it last. Milk, as you're probably aware,
goes sour pretty quickly. And keeping those important nutrients in an edible
condition for a longer period of time would have been a key concern. However,
it is likely that the first solution to this problem came about by accident.

Early in the history of domestication, travelers, shepherd, and farmers started

carrying around drinks in bottles made from sheep or goat skin. Besides water
and alcoholic beverages, the other drink that would have been toted around in
this way was milk. Left to sit in these containers, cream would have likely
separated out on top. Combine this with a day or more of being shaken around
in a hip flask and it's easy to see how one of those workers might have opened
his milk jug and inadvertently discovered butter. By 2000 B.C.E. this haphazard
churning process had become more standardized. In Arabia and Syria, women
poured milk into larger jugs made from the whole leg and thigh of a goat. Then
they suspended this jug from beams in the family tent and swung it around until
butter formed.

Although it had the same nutrients as milk, butter could sit around longer and
still be usable. It quickly became both nutritionally and symbolically important,
figuring into countless mythologies as a signifier of abundance and creation. In
some areas like Tibet, fermented dairy products like butter tea (along with
butter itself) are still a staple of the diet.
Timeline of Dairy Products

Aurochs, the wild ancestors of modern cows, once ranged over large areas of
Asia, Europe and North Africa. Aurochs were first domesticated 8,000 to 10,000
years ago in the Fertile Crescent area of the Near East and evolved into two
types of domestic cattle, the humped Zebu (Bos indicus) and the
humpless European Highland cattle (Bos taurus). Some scientists believe that
domesticated cattle from the Fertile Crescent spread throughout Eurasia, while
others believe that a separate domestication event took place in the area of
India and Pakistan.

Through analyzing degraded fats on unearthed potshards, scientists have

discovered that Neolithic farmers in Britain and Northern Europe may have been
among the first to begin milking cattle for human consumption. The dairying
activities of these European farmers may have begun as early as 6,000 years
ago. According to scientists, the ability to digest milk was slowly gained some
time between 5000-4000 B.C.E. by the spread of a genetic mutation called
lactase persistance that allowed post-weaned humans to
continue to digest milk. The rise of other major dairying civilizations in the Near
East, India, and North Africa.

Although there is evidence of cattle domestication in Mesopotamia as early as

8000 B.C.E., the milking of dairy cows did not become a major part of Sumerian
civilization until approximately 3000 B.C.E. Archaelogical evidence shows that
the Ancient Sumerians drank cow's milk and also made cow's milk into cheeses
and butters. The picture to the left is of a carved dairy scene found in the temple
of Ninhursag in the Sumerian city of Tell al-Ubaid. The scene, which shows
typical dairy activities such as milking, straining and making butter, dates to the
first half of the third millennium B.C.E.

At least as early as 3100 B.C.E., the domesticated cow had been introduced to, or
had been separately domesticated in, Northern Africa. In Ancient Egypt, the
domesticated cow played a major role in Egyptian agriculture and spirituality.
Attesting to its central role in Egyptian life, the cow was deified. The Egyptians
"held the cow sacred and dedicated her to Isis, goddess of agriculture; but more
than that, the cow was a goddess in her own right, named Hathor, who guarded
the fertility of the land."
Quote

“Milk matters to people everywhere.”

- Dairy products are the amongst most traded products in Malaysia.
Issue Statement

Meet your Milk.

Do you know that most of the milk product in the Malaysian market are not
fresh?

As most of the milk products in the Malaysian market are imported from
Australia and New Zealand. It goes through a long journey before it reaches your
hand. Don’t believe? Try to take a look at the ingredients of other milk brand in
the market. You will notice that many use “milk solids” as an ingredient. It is also
known as “susu tepung” or “perpejal susu” in Bahasa Malaysia. Contrary to what
you might think, this doesn’t mean that the milk has a thicker taste or contains
more nutritional benefit. Rather , it means the dairy you’re consuming was
dehydrated, turned into powder, transported to Malaysia and then reconstituted
upon arrival.
The Reasons Behind

Lack of skills and training

One of the main constraints of developing the dairy sector was inadequate
training provided to farmers. The shortage of trained manpower at all levels lead
to poor hygiene and milking techniques, resulting in the rejection of milk by
MCCs.

Poor dairy farm management & inadequate nutritious feed

Production remains low as management practices and record-keeping systems
are still not up to standard. Small-scale dairy farmers, who own less than 30
dairy animals typically still use hand written recording system, while others fail
to produce any records. Lactating dairy cattle not fed with adequate nutritious
feed is another contributing factor that has led to low
productivity of dairy cattle.

Low breed performance & inadaptability to local environmental conditions

The dairy animals in Malaysia has low genetic potential for milk production
which contributed to the low production levels. So, Malaysia try to import the
purebred dairy cattle like Friesian and Jersey to increase milk production was
also deemed as a failure as the local climate in Malaysia was unfavorable for the
purebreds.

Thus, Malaysia still does not have new registered local pure-bred dairy cattle
with the desired characteristics, Eg. high milk yield and adaptable to local humid
conditions. One possible reason is due to the lack of focus on developing the
dairy sector, breeding of purebreds has not been priority. To-date, Malaysia has
no new local varieties of dairy cattle, hence importation of dairy cattle continues.
High input and feed costs
Another hindrance to the
development of the Malaysian dairy sector is the high
production costs which caUses Malaysia does not have
comparative advantage in milk production. The production costs are estimated
per litre of milk was US$0.35 in 1980, whereas cost of milk powder per litre
equivalent was only US$0.19. The increasing demand and
limited supply of quality breeder animals has resulted in higher import costs for
Malaysia as Malaysia imports most of its breeder animals from Australia and
New Zealand.

Besides that, the limited availability of land and grazing areas for cattle rearing
as well as high feed costs continues to constrain the development of milk
production in the country. One of the reason attributable to high feed cost is
because inventions related to feed related technologies filed in Malaysia are
largely dominated by foreign firms so most of feed ingredients are imported and
subjected to global commodity price
fluctuations.
Trend

In 2016, total population of Malaysia is estimated at 31.7 million persons, an

increase of 0.5 million persons as compared to 31.2 million persons in 2015 with
1.5 per cent population growth rate for the same period.
Chart

Despite the various breeding programs to increase production of fresh milk

from cattle, Malaysia’s self-sufficiency level (SSL) for milk was only 5% in 2012,
and this could be attributable to population increase. Unable to meet the rising
demand, SSL remains stagnant.
Introduction

Moore is a urban dairy farm that aims to address the issues of the lack of dairy
products in Malaysia through the creation of an architectture which integrates
systems designed to enhance the life of the cities. In Moore, we belived that
cities should be self-sustained rather than bodies which relies on the satelitte
resources. We vow to produce and handle fresh dairy products very close to the
consumers in the citu. Besides that, we also provide an educational place for
millenials to come and experience how dairy products they consumed are
produced, learnt about the facts of the dairy products they consumed, have
some wild experience with the cattles,and experiment with different products
produced.
Cattle’s Quarter

At Moore, the cattles’ quater has designated bedding, feeding and drinking areas
to support cattles that are resident inside. The drinking water will be collected
from the rain water outside that piped directly into a trough low enough for the
swine to use at ease. The extractor fans that located above the bedding area will
be used to regulate the air quality inside the cattles quarter including the smells
and germs that are airborne. Besides that, there will be a double layer glass that
acts as a sliding door that provide access for the cattles to get back directly into
the communal green for grazing the grass.
Visitor’s Policy

The health and welfare of our cattles and the safety of the products that they
produced are our highest priority. The policy is created to help protect the
visitors and the cattles. Visitors of Moore farm is encouraged to follow the
guidelines:

- The visitor hours for the moore farm will start from 9am to 6pm.

- Visitors are only allowed to enter the facilities at designated places.

- Visitors are not allowed to enter the areas marked with “Employees Only”.

- Visitors are encouraged to wash and sanitise their hands before and after
they get in contact with our cattles.
Visitor’s Experience

The Urban Dairy Farm Experience

- Learn about the history of the dairy products.

- Learn how the dairy products you consumed gets from our farm to your table.

- Experience feeding the cow.

- Experience milking a cow and bring home a bottle of fresh milk.

- Experience making your own ice-cream or yogurts.

- Experience the Milk Spa.

- Purchased the fresh dairy products produced daily.