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The association had submitted a memorandum to the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry demanding restriction on imports of butter oil, skimmed milk products and grant of export subsidies with retrospective effect from April 17, 2008.
“Till now we did not get any feedback from the ministry and if our main demands are not met, we will be forced to stop all milk procurement from farmers. Now we are procuring milk from them and paying them every 10 days. If milk procurement is stopped it will affect the livelihood of 2.5 to 3 lakh farmers,” said Amitabh Ray, president, Diary Industry Export Organisation.
Now the diary products manufactures are processing around 30 lakh litres per day and the global downturn has had a negative impact on the industry.
“In the current global scenario the diary industry in the country is not able to export their products. Globally prices of dairy products have come down due to huge subsidies given by USA, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. This makes foreign dairy products available in India at a much cheaper rate making the Indian farmer highly uncompetitive.
Also it is the same in the international market,” said Ray. The association in the memorandum submitted to the government stated that the companies have no other option, but to refrain from milk processing as their warehouses are full with dairy products, which have become already un-usable. “We therefore will have to refuse milk being supplied by our farmers who in turn will undergo severe financial crisis,” the memorandum said.
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