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59
Milk.
During the year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries issued the report
of the Working Party on Quality Milk Production, the main points of which can
be summarised as follows :—
(1) there has been some deterioration in the compositional quality of milk in
England and Wales, the decline in " solids-not-fat" being more marked
than that in fat ;
(2) much of this decline took place during the war and is due to the feeding
difficulties then experienced ;
(3) efforts have been made to improve the compositional quality and the decline
appears to have been arrested in recent years, at least in some parts of
the country. There are, however, still many producers who continue
to produce poor milk and these producers must be encouraged to improve ;
(4) the introduction of a scheme for payment for milk on the basis of compositional
quality could not be recommended, but instead producers and
distributors should co-operate with the assistance of Government Departments
and the Research Institutes in an effort to improve the compositional
quality of milk, beginning with the poorest ;
(5) those concerned should as soon as possible pay as much attention to solidsnot-fat
records as they already do to fat records ;
(6) more research is needed into all factors affecting the composition of milk ;
(7) the necessary foundation for progress is the maintenance of continuous
records of compositional quality for all breeds and for all parts of the
country ;
(8) Food and Drugs Authorities should not initiate a prosecution for the
addition of water to milk unless they have obtained an unfavourable result
from applying the Freezing Point Test.