Ongoing tussle : Dairy farmers demand increase in milk prices

Farmers bear loss of Rs7,000 per month, claims association president

KARACHI: The city may witness acute milk shortage during Ramazan, as the All Karachi Dairy Farmer Action Committee, which includes eight dairy farmers' associations, claimed it could not continue supplying milk on the prices fixed by the government.

According to the committee's president, Haji Salahuddin, their business is about to collapse as they are being compelled to supply milk at much less than the input cost and adulterated milk is being supplied in the open market. He was speaking at a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Monday.



On April 9, 2012, the government set the milk price for retailers at Rs70 per litre and the farmer's rate was Rs64.5. After four years, he said that the retail prices soared up to Rs80 per litre, whereas farmers' rate was pegged at Rs71 per litre, pointed out Karachi Dairy Farmer president Haji Sikandar.

However, when the official retail price of the milk was Rs70, it was being sold at Rs84 per litre. "Now, we demand to set the price of the milk considering the ground realities," he said.

According to Sikandar, former Karachi commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui had formed three committees, under three deputy commissioners, to determine the cost of production of milk.

All the committees had submitted their reports according to which the cost of the production of the milk is around Rs83, he claimed. According to this, the retail price of the milk should be somewhere near Rs95. However, the incumbent commissioner Karachi, Asif Hyder Shah, set the farm rates to Rs71, which is less than the actual cost, he said, calling it 'sheer injustice'.

Meanwhile, Salahuddin claimed that dairy farmers were bearing a Rs7,000 loss monthly. The cost of production plus the management cost of keeping a cow are now skyrocketing and we have no choice but to increase the prices or wind up our businesses, he added.

On a question regarding the decline in petrol prices, Sikandar said that the petrol prices have nothing to do with the prices of milk. "One needs to understand the mechanism of milk prices," he said, adding that the day was not far when people would only be left with boxed milk and there won't be any dairy farmers.

Meanwhile, commissioner Shah was unavailable for comments on the issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2016.