Bizarre: Bumper onion crop results in onion-flavoured milk

The flavouring came through an indirect route - the stomach of cows. The huge, and cheap, availability of onions seems to be the culprit.

As there are no takers for the bumper crop of onion and prices are spiralling down, farmers in the Indore region are now feeding the bulb to the milch animals. 

This has resulted in the production of 'onion-flavoured' milk!

"When several customers complained that the milk smelt of onion, we probed the matter and found that farmers were feeding their milch animals with onions which are available in plenty as there are no buyers for the crop," Indore Milk Producers Association president BharatMathurawala told PTI. 

"We have requested farmers not to feed onions to milch animals," he said. 

Because of the bumper harvest, this time, onion prices plummeted, and farmers could not recover even the input costs in some places. 

On the other hand, Mathurawala said, the cost of kapasya-khali, the cattle feed made from cotton oil cake, had risen to Rs 3,000 per quintal, which resulted in an increase in the cost of milk. 

He demanded that the one per cent VAT on kapasya-khahi should be removed to give relief to milk farmers, and its future trading should be banned. 

Veterinarian Dr Jyotiprakash Mishra said if the milch animals are given a large amount of onions in their feed, then the milk will have a smell. It also affects their digestive system, he said. 

If the animals consume onion without chewing it, then it may also lead to stomach problems, he warned.