The industrialist who did not pay gave a 'milk holiday' warning

But the farmers claim that the industrialists are conspiring in this. They say that the dairies have a plan to mix stock butter and milk powder and sell them on the pretext of milk holiday.

Dairy Industry Association chairman Rajkumar Dahal said that the situation of milk holiday has been created due to the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development has been informed about the problems in the dairy sector since last July. "During the dry season, the production of milk has increased, the production has increased, and the purchase and conversion is more than the capacity," Dahal said. Despite repeated requests to manage the

properly, there was no response. We also informed that as the balance in the industry is increasing, due to lack of working capital, there may be a problem in paying the farmers," he said. With large stockpiles and disequilibrium in the payment cycle, the milking season is about to begin. If this is the case, there may be a milk holiday from August.'

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, private dairies have not paid about 4 billion to farmers. The amount is up to the last week of May. Prices will increase further as we reach June. Surya Paudel, joint secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the government-owned Dairy Development Institute (DDC) has arrears of 1.43 billion. "In terms of price, the amount is too much, DDC has started selling at a much reduced price. It would be better if the private sector also adopts the same policy,'' he said. We have set a date for payment to farmers.'

industry says that the payment has become more complicated when the ministry gives concessional loans only to DDC. It is mentioned in the statement issued by the association that despite the written commitment to bring concrete policies and programs through the budget statement, the problem of private dairy, which occupies 80 percent of the market share, has not been addressed. "Despite giving 300 million concessional loans to solve the problem of DDC, agriculture has neglected the private sector," said a statement issued by the union, "The accumulated powdered milk and butter cannot be sustained by domestic consumption alone." In order to purchase more milk in the upcoming flush season, there is a compulsion to use up the stock in any way. If the government does not come up with a solid policy to solve the problem, the problem will become more complicated with the milk holiday from the middle of August.'

In the flush season (August-February) 500,000 liters of milk is collected daily and in the lean season (April-July) up to 375,000 milk is collected. The association claims that milk powder and butter were converted from 50 million milk last year by collecting more milk than the demand. This is the reason why the association has not sent the payment within 15-15 days. "In order to prevent a milk holiday in the coming flush season, the balance that is more than internal consumption should be facilitated to be exported, and subsidies should be given during export and loans should be given at affordable interest subsidies based on the balance," the statement said. A policy should be introduced to determine the price of raw milk. Since then, Ram Prasad Acharya, the general secretary of the Central Milk Production Cooperative Association, said that milk production has increased as the dairy industry has said. According to the dairy industry's strategy of dissolving powdered milk, the pretext of milk holiday was made, he claims. "As the industrialists say, milk production has not increased, this is a strategy of not buying from the farmers and selling powdered milk," said Acharya, "If there is a milk holiday, it will be unfair to the farmers." Joint Secretary Poudel said. He said that in case of excess production of milk, it will be studied to convert it into milk powder and other dairy products. Apart from this, initiatives are also being taken to export dairy products, he said.

There has been an attempt to send milk products to Bangladesh, but the price has varied greatly. There was a demand for cheap dairy products from there. We have also kept Sri Lanka as an alternative. But the Ministry of Agriculture alone is not enough. "There is no trade agreement with Nepal," said Paudel, "if the Ministry of Commerce had made a trade agreement, exports could have happened."