Pasteurised milk essential to attain SDGs

No poverty, zero hunger, and good health and well-being are the first three goals of the United Nations driven 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) meant to improve the standard of living of member countries. Quality education is the fourth goal, but unless poverty, hunger, and good health are ensured, can anyone even think of receiving or providing education, let alone quality education? The last few years have been a test for Pakistan. First, Covid-19 pushed a large segment into acute poverty. Later, the Ukraine war, domestic political mandarins, and unprecedented floods further pushed up the poverty curve. If this was not enough, there is no political will to improve the situation.

Development has many facets. Provision of food is one. The provision of safe food is another. And the provision of safe and healthy food through a secure supply chain is also different. Food can become dangerous if it is not safe and healthy. Despite good intentions to provide unadulterated food, a mishandled supply chain can lead to the supply of unsafe food. Standardisation of processes is the only way to close the gaps of these malpractices. Therefore, all the actors involved in the provision of food should converge on a singular objective of defining guidelines and improving quality and productivity of the food supply chain.

Scientific and technological interventions have indeed benefited human beings by identifying preventable diseases, defining measures to avoid them, and developing treatments to improve the quality of life. However, medical science cannot work in silos unless those handling food security, water and sewerage, and the processing and transferring of food share the common objective of providing people with safe, secure and nutritious food.

Milk can be an excellent example to understand this theory. During the 1920s, some of the leading causes of death were the plague, tuberculosis, dysentery, typhoid fever, malaria, yellow fever, smallpox, and measles. Some of these diseases had zoonotic sources, while others were produced or spread from contaminated food and water. Millions of people died from these preventable diseases all throughout the 20^th century. Antibiotics and vaccines, coupled with other medicines, helped eliminate the footprints of many of these diseases, however, it was not until focus was shifted towards containing the sources of these diseases that the infliction rate started diminishing.

Food and water were the first targets. Anything that contaminated them had to be treated. When milk, one of the largest consumed food items, was examined, it turned out that unless there is a truly protected, fully hygienic and completely insulated system — which was and still is impossible to create in a stable — raw milk cannot be prevented from becoming hazardous for health. There is a close relationship between bacteria and temperature. The temperature limit of every bacterium is different. Any temperature beyond or below the limit a bacterium can tolerate will lead to the decomposition of the food.

While requiring hygienic handling, milk from the udder is only fit for drinking if kept at a temperature less than 4 degrees centigrade, which means in a chilled atmosphere. This also means that a stable or pasture should have advanced milk storage facilities. This assessment and the entrepreneurs’ inability to provide for such a fool proof ubiquitous hygienic system led many governments to take the matter into their hands, resulting in the development of ultra-high temperature (UHT) and pasteurised milk systems. In the case of the former, the milk is packed in aseptic packaging while the latter, due to its short shelf life, does not need this extra layer of protection.

Let’s look into the history of pasteurisation.

In 1822, Louis Pasteur developed the process of pasteurisation. In 1893, the US formed a medical commission to certify raw milk. The commercialisation of the pasteurisation of milk began in the US in 1895. By 1917, it had been mandatory to pasteurise milk. Between the 1950s and 60s, milk cartons were introduced. The UHT processed milk was developed in the 1960. Ever since then, it is illegal to sell open milk in most of the states in the US and in many countries including in the Middle East.

In Pakistan’s Punjab province, however, the Minimum Pasteurization Law was implemented in 2021. Though the government had the objective to enforce this law by July 2022, the so-called regime change halted the process. Even a cursory look at the figures of milk sold in the open and the amount sold as a UHT or pasteurised milk is enough to substantiate the fact that Pakistan is facing a health crisis and has one of the highest numbers of stunted and wasted children in South Asia. Loose milk represents 95% of the informal sector, whereas packaged milk comprises only 5% of the organized sector. Dr Muhammad Nasir, the regulatory affair General Manager at FrieslandCampina Engro Pakistan Limited rightly asks, “Are we really consuming milk?” The answer is a big NO.

Pakistan, being one of the high per capita milk-consuming countries, must save future generations from malnutrition and stunted growth. In order to do so, people need to put their act together and stop selling and purchasing raw milk. Considering that some of the main urban cities of Pakistan, such as Lahore and Karachi, figure at the top of the most polluted cities list, one can imagine the kind of contaminated milk we are giving to more than 95% of the population.

Demanding packaged UHT and pasteurised milk is not walking on the commercialisation rope, it is taking a safe and secure path to attain one of the first three Sustainable Development Goals. Without having a healthy human resource, how can we even think of eliminating poverty and giving our children quality education?

Are we ready to see the reality?

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2022.

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