Thailand's ex-prime minister buys surplus DPO milk as raw milk glut hits dairy farmers

Former Thai prime minister Srettha Thavisin has started buying surplus milk from the Dairy Farming Promotion Organization of Thailand (DPO) and channelling it to state welfare institutions, after the organisation appealed for help with a raw milk glut hitting Thai dairy farmers. Daily News reported the latest purchase on 24 September.

The milk was delivered to the Phayathai Babies' Home and to the Ban Nonthaphum Protection and Development Centre for Persons with Disabilities in Nonthaburi province. Nikorn Somklang, Minister of Social Development and Human Security, accepted the consignment on behalf of the two institutions. Srettha is acting through the Sermkla Foundation, registered in English as the Children's Cornerstone Foundation, which he co-founded in 2011.

Why the DPO went looking for buyers

According to Daily News, the DPO — the state body tasked with promoting Thailand's dairy sector — contacted the foundation directly after farmers were left holding raw milk they could not place on the market. The approach indicates that the organisation's regular offtake channels were not clearing the volumes arriving from farms.

Raw milk is perishable and cannot be held back while a buyer is found. Producers either sell it within days, pay to dry it into powder or other keeping products, or lose it. That timing pressure is what turns a short imbalance between farm output and processing demand into a cash-flow problem for cooperatives, and then into pressure on farmgate prices.

No volumes, prices or duration disclosed

The report gives no figures for the size of the surplus, the quantity purchased, the price paid, or how long the arrangement will run. Nor does it quantify how much of Thailand's raw milk output is currently unsold. For processors, traders and importers watching the Thai market, that is the main analytical gap: the direction is clear, the scale is not.

Srettha said the purchases continue earlier work rather than start a new programme, and that he had previously bought milk in large lots for redistribution.

Those earlier deliveries went to:

• foundations and welfare shelters;
• early childhood development centres and schools;
• areas identified as short of supplies in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces;
• Ratchaburi province, the country's first pilot province in the Ratchaburi Zero Dropout education project.

The social programme around the purchase

Srettha said technology will matter for skills development and called on state bodies and private companies to supply computers and teaching materials to the institutions he visited. At Ban Nonthaphum, he said, disabled children use an average of three nappies per person per day and supplies remain short; he asked the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security to survey which types and sizes are needed.

The foundation plans to run vocational training for people with disabilities in October, with the aim of placing them with private employers. Srettha cited property developer Sansiri, where he said disabled staff are hired into real roles built around their own interests rather than for appearances. "Even though my political role has changed today, my intention to drive society forward has never diminished," he said, adding that continuity was necessary.

The foundation, set up in 2011 by Srettha, Thailand's 30th prime minister, describes its remit as education, health, sport and quality of life for disadvantaged children and young people, acting as a bridge between business, partner networks and donors.