MILK MARKETING AND CONSUMPTION PATTERN IN DAERAH ISTIMEWA YOGYAKARTA PROVINCE, INDONESIA <Articles>

Milk being highly perishable, the availability of a good market to sell milk is critical to the success of dairying. A good market may be defined as one where prices paid to milk producers are high enough to provide the opportunity for a reasonable level of profit and secure enough to provide assurance of a continuing outlet for the milk.

The purposes of this study are to analyze the milk marketing channel and to analyze the milk consumption pattern and its relation with the household income and housewife education level. The research about milk marketing was done by interviewing of 88 milk producers. To know the milk consumption pattern, a study of households' milk consumption was also done by interviewing of 270 housewives. Structured questionnaires were used during the interview. Information about the types of milk that are available in the market and their price were collected from some sources, such as farmers, cooperative, agents, milk processing plant, supermarkets and shops.

The milk producers in the study regions tend to sell their milk through cooperative although some also sell the milk directly to consumers and local agents. The cooperative supplies the milk to the milk processing plant on the contract basis. The milk processing plant processes the milk and distributes it to the consumers as milk products. Cooperative also distributes a part of milk to the local agent and consumers directly, and a part is processed as ultra heat temperature milk and distributed to the consumers directly. Selling milk in urban and sub urban areas depend on the possibility to sell milk to the consumers directly. Milk producers tend to sell milk to the consumers directly because they get the higher price than the cooperative price. Selling milk in rural areas depend much on the cooperative.

There are a large number of people in the study areas who do not consume any type of milk. Many also consume milk infrequently. In general, awareness of importance and using of milk increases with the household income and housewife's education level. The household income also influence in the choosing of milk types. Consumption of sweetened condensed milk decreases with the increasing of household income. Other milk types (ultra heat temperature milk, milk powder and fresh milk) consumption increase with the increasing of household income.

The majority of people still regarded milk as luxurious beverage. The share of milk in monthly per capita food expenditure was 16.3% and 14.8% in urban and sub urban areas, respectively, for the people who consume milk everyday. It was 5.0% and 4.1% in urban and sub urban areas, respectively, for the people who consume milk infrequently.

With the fact that the milk consumption was very low, it is recommended that in Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (DIY) Province, the drinking milk campaign is still needed in order to make the people aware of the importance of milk, especially for the growing children.