Hanoi - Vietnamese officials vowed Thursday to stop dairy farmers from pouring away their unwanted milk, even though consumers frightened by the Chinese melamine scare have stopped buying it.

Vietnamese press this week have reported numerous incidents of dairy farmers pouring excess milk into rivers or onto roadways. Vietnamese milk consumption has dropped sharply since the discovery this fall that world milk supplies had been contaminated by Chinese milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.

Authorities announced Wednesday that state milk companies had been ordered to buy up all the milk produced by the country's dairy farmers, regardless of demand. They say farmers will not be allowed to dump milk.

"I consider it a crime," said Dr Hoang Kim Giao, director of Vietnam's Animal Husbandry Department. "Why don't they boil the milk and deliver it to somebody? While many people need it, why do they pour it away? I consider such conduct a crime, such conduct is uncivilized."

Giao said farmers had deliberately held back milk and dumped it only when reporters were present, to build media support for government compensation for lower milk prices.

But farmers say the dumping is no publicity stunt. They say reduced purchases by dairy companies leave them with tons of excess milk every week, which they must dispose of after it reaches the three-day sell-by limit.

"We can store 3 to 4 tons of milk at each storage point," said Hoang Trong Thuyen, 69, chairman of the dairy collective of Phu Dong village outside Hanoi. "But the dairy companies only buy about one and a half tons, and some days they don't come at all."

Thuyen said average dairy farmers in his village are spending as much to feed their cows as they earn selling milk. He said if the situation did not improve, many would sell their cows for slaughter.

Meanwhile, the price of a dairy cow has dropped from almost 2,000 dollars before the melamine scandal to some 400 dollars.

Dozens of teams of government inspectors conducting nationwide surveys over the past three months have pronounced Vietnam's milk supply safe.

Several suppliers, including state-owned Hanoimilk, have been found to have low, non-threatening levels of melamine in some of their products due to imported Chinese milk powder. Those products have been recalled.

But Vietnamese consumers have not gone back to buying milk in anything like the quantities they once did.

Vietnamese press quoted Hanoimilk's director Wednesday as saying his factory was running at 50 per cent of its normal capacity. (dpa)