Validation of portable tool and methodology to monitor Milk Quality in the production and collection point
Validation of portable tool and methodology to monitor Milk Quality in the production and collection point
Milk is a complex substance that presents different characteristics depending on the management of animal factors. The alizarol test is typically used at collection points, which often generates divergences between the industry and farmers because of faulty results and subjectivities. More refined tests are only accomplished in laboratories when the milk reaches the industry. A very critical problem is the occurrence of Unstable Non-Acid Milk (UNAM), as there are changes in the milk's physical-chemical properties. UNAM is discarded, entailing losses for farmers and consumers. In order to minimize trust issues and improve milk quality, researchers idealized a portable tool that would be fast to produce results, easy to handle both in the field (collection truck) and in the laboratory or set up in cooling tanks (at dairies, cooperative unions, and farms), and which supplied information on the state of raw milk. A prototype developed at Embrapa Instrumentation (São Carlos, SP), under preliminary tests, supplied results regarding the detection of several situations found in milk, such as: milk instability during storage, degradation in time, acidification, traces of cases of subclinical and clinical mastitis, and others. However, to become an equipment that can be transferred to the private initiative and reach the market, both the equipment and its methodology need to be validated. Thus, the project's main goal is the validation of the tool whose purpose is to monitor the quality of raw milk in production and collection points. Such validation involves the Embrapa Units that have labs that are accredited for milk analysis, Embrapa Dairy Cattle (Juiz de Fora, MG) and Embrapa Temperate Agriculture (Pelotas, RS).
Status: Completed Start date: Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2018 Conclusion date: Tue Dec 31 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2019
Head Unit: Embrapa Instrumentation
Project leader: Washington Luiz de Barros Melo
Contact: washington.melo@embrapa.br
Keywords: espectrometro, leite, qualidade, mastite, LINA, instabilidade