Milk quality management of small and medium cattle ranchers of collection centers and artisan cheese factories, for continuous improvement. Case study: Carchi, Ecuador

Abstract

The objective of this research was to analyze the monitoring of good livestock practices of small and medium milk producers in the province of Carchi, with a entailment project under an inter-institutional agreement between the Salesian Polytechnic University, the Alpina Foundation and the Provincial Autonomous Decentralized Government of the Carchi (GADPC). Two samplings were carried out at 630 productive units to determine the hygienic, sanitary and physico-chemical quality of the milk. With the results of the first phase, a technical intervention was made to the farmers through field visits, lectures and technical advice for the diagnosis of mastitis and integral quality of the milk. In the next phase of the project, the second sampling was carried out where laboratory tests were applied such as pH, cryoscopy, lacto fermentation and reductase. The most relevant results of the study were; in terms of compositional quality, more than 90% of the producers comply with the NTE INEN 9 standard for raw milk; it was also observed that 6.3% of the farmers improved the hygienic quality with bacterial counts <600,000 IBC/ml; in sanitary quality there was no improvement in the reduction of somatic cell contents.