WELLINGTON - New Zealand Dairy Group is boosting the price it will pay its 7800 farmers to harvest colostrum from their cows this spring.
Colostrum is a fluid which is taken from the first five milkings of dairy cows that have given birth. Described as nature's own nutritional medicine, colostrum contains
immunoglobulins which are seen as providing a wide range of health benefits.
Dairy Group chairman Henry Van Der Heyden said there was a strong market demand for speciality colostrum products, and the company would now pay $1 a litre for average-strength colostrum, compared with 80c a litre announced earlier this season and 55c a litre paid to suppliers last year.
Mr Van Der Heyden said the company's colostrum business had grown rapidly over the past two years.
"We are now in a position where we are struggling to meet demand for these high-value products," he said.
Demand for colostrum has grown strongly since Australian studies highlighted its nutriceutical properties for humans.
Gastrogard, a pharmaceutical product made from colostrum, is registered as a drug in Australia and New Zealand and used to protect hospitalised children from rotavirus, the major cause of infectious diarrhoea in children.
The same company has also developed a way to use colostrum to protect travellers against diarrhoea caused by enterotoxic Escherichia coli.
- NZPA
