Milk to cost Rs 38 per packet from Saturday

Milk will cost Rs 38 for a half-litre packet from Saturday as the farm gate price has increased. Currently, it costs Rs 35 for a half-litre packet of milk.
Dairy Development Corporation (DDC) has agreed to increase the price of milk by Rs 6 per litre to Rs 76 per litre after the continuous pressure from dairy cooperatives and private dairies.
Out of this increased price, farmers will get Rs 4.16 more per litre for a total of Rs 52.46 per litre. Dairy processing companies will get Rs 23.54 per litre, up by Rs 1.84 from earlier, the DDC said in a press note.
Earlier, the DDC had hiked the milk price on August 17, 2017.
The DDC has decided to revise the price upward after receiving the green signal from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development on Thursday, according to the state-owned dairy. “The corporation had proposed the ministry to hike the price to provide relief to milk producers, who have been complaining of a sharp rise in production costs in the past two years,” it confirmed, adding that the ministry’s green signal to jack up the price has helped increased the share of farmer take home money.
Currently, the domestic market is dominated by the Dairy Development Corporation that captures a 40 per cent market share in the country’s dairy business and acts as a market maker.
The Central Dairy Cooperative Association and private dairies have been since for the past few months pressuring the government to hike the milk price by Rs 6 to Rs 10 per litre. They had also warned the government of protest, if the price was not increased.
Nepal produces 2.25 million tonnes of milk daily, of which half is consumed at the local level, one-third is sold by farmers directly to their customers, whereas the rest is packaged and labeled for sale through business outlets, according to the DDC, according to the National Dairy Development Board. “Of the total milk produced in the country, Kathmandu Valley consumes around 60 per cent as the demand for milk in the Valley stands at 500,000 litres daily.”
The government has recently banned the powdered milk imports, and rise in demand with the start of the festival season, and also due to ongoing lean season – from April to September when the milk production drops by 15 per cent – Valley is witnessing the shortage of milk.
The DDC produces powdered milk at its plant in Biratnagar, apart from two private companies – Chitwan Milk in Bharatpur and Sujal Dairy in Pokhara – also produce powdered milk. The total production of the three factories stands at 1,700 tonnes to 1,800 tonnes annually, according to the board.

Milk price to go up by Rs 10 per litre

The government is likely to hike milk price by up to Rs 10 per litre targeting the rise in cost of milk production for farmers.
According to acting executive director of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) Babukaji Panta, the preparation is under way to raise milk price by up to Rs 10 per litre. Panta is the coordinator of the task force formed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) to review milk price.
The ministry – on Wednesday – has formed an eight-member task force led by Panta to revise milk price. The task force includes representatives from Nepal Dairy Association, Dairy Industry Association, Central Dairy Cooperative Association, Dairy Development Corporation, Department of Livestock Services, and technical officer of NDDB.
The farmers had been demanding to hike upto Rs 10 per litre since long. But they are still holding consultations with other stakeholders on this front. “The task force will soon submit its report to the government recommending that the milk price be increased in favour of farmers,” Panta said, adding that farmers will get 69 per cent of the raised price of milk – after the revision – while dairies and milk distributors will get the remaining amount like they are getting now.
The Central Dairy Cooperative Association has also been lobbying that the government should increase milk price by Rs 10 per litre as the price has not been revised since more than two-and-a-half years. “The government is reluctant to raise milk price though inflation has hit every sector,” the association informed.

Government may hike milk price

The government is planning to hike milk price within a month.
Considering the demand from farmers that their cost of livestock farming has gone up in recent months, the government has been planning to increase price of the milk after three years. The dairy farmers, who are paid an average of Rs 42 for a litre of milk have been demanding an increase it to Rs 54 per litre.
"The Dairy Development Board (DDB) has recently submitted a study report suggesting the government to hike milk price,” according to spokesperson for the Ministry of Livestock Development (MoLD) Shyam Prasad Poudel. "The government will allow the board to increase the price of milk after thoroughly analysing the report," he said, however, refusing to disclose the new adjustment rate in milk price recommended by the board.
The state-owned Dairy Development Corporation (DDC) will adjust the price of milk following a go-ahead from the DDB and private dairies will also revise the price within one or two days.
The dairy firms have been selling milk with three per cent fat and eight per cent solid-not-fat (SNF) at Rs 64 per litre in the market, while milk with five per cent fat and eight per cent SNF is sold at Rs 80 per litre.
Meanwhile, livestock farmers have said that they should get at least Rs 50 for a litre of milk to sustain their business but the dairy firms have been paying merely Rs 42 or Rs 43 to them.
The country is currently producing an average of 1.8 million metric tonnes of milk annually, according to the statistics of the ministry. "Nepal is more than 80 per cent self-sufficient in milk while the country imports some amount of fresh milk from India during off-seasons."
According to the general manager of DDC Ganga Timsina, the price hike in milk is necessary not only because the production cost of farmers has increased but also due to surging production cost of dairy firms. But the price hike will benefit the farmers as almost 70 per cent of the hiked price will go to farmers and remaining 30 per cent will go to dairy firms.
Earlier, the government had increased the price of milk by up to Rs 10 per litre in December of 2014. The government had then increased the price by eight rupees per litre for milk with three per cent fat and eight per cent SNF and by Rs 10 per litre for milk with five per cent fat and eight per cent SNF.

Increasing milk production not enough to meet market demand

The domestic market has still some 500,000 litres of milk scarcity daily, according to the preliminary estimation.
"Though the number of cow and buffalo, and milk production witnessed increase in the current fiscal year, the domestic market is having scarcity of some 500,000 litres of milk daily and dependent on import," said spokesperson of Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives Dr Hari Dahal.
The country is going to witness an increase of 4.26 per cent of milk production to 1.62 million metric tonnes in the current fiscal year compared to the last fiscal year's 1.55 million metric tonnes, he said, adding that the number of cows and buffaloes have also increased but it could not be able to meet the market demand.
Similarly, the production of buffalo milk is more than double than the cow milk production. "The cow milk production is going to increase by 4.86 per cent to 468,913 metric tonnes and buffalo milk production is going to increase by 4.01 percent to 1.15 metric tonnes in the current fiscal year." he added.
Likewise, the number of milking cow is going to see an increase of 2.55 per cent to 998,962 this fiscal year from last fiscal year's 974,122, the ministry projected, adding that the number of milking buffaloes is also going to increase by 3.05 per cent to 1.33 million this fiscal year from last fiscal year's 1.29 million.
However, the increase in number of buffaloes and cows and milk production has not been able to meet the current market demand, Dahal said, adding that this fiscal year, the country is estimated to witness increase in livestock and meat production as well.
"The production of fowl is expected to see the highest growth of 12.85 per cent followed by laying hens (at 5.60 per cent) in the current fiscal year, whereas production of ducks, horses, and asses could witness negative growth," the ministry's preliminary data revealed.

Research on increasing milk production succeeds

Khilanath Neupane of Chitwan, Phulbari has been able to earn more by selling more milk these days without increasing the number of his cattles.
"I have five cattles and two buffaloes," the ex-Nepal Aman said, adding that he used to sell around 30 litres of milk earlier but since he has started feeding the cattles the new balanced dry heated feed developed for the cattles, they are producing around five to eight litres more increasing his income.
It is the first time in the domestic diary sector that such a dairy feed product is designed to meet the nutrition need of the high yielding cattle and buffaloes with more protein, fat, TDN, minerals and vitamins."We have done a long reaserch and developed the dry, heated balanced pellet feed that can help boost quality milk production," said Dr Dinesh Gautam, Chief Technical Officer of the Probiotech Industries Pvt Ltd, a company under the Nimbus Group.
"The company with supported from Practical Action has done extensive research in Chitwan and Gurkha to develop the feed that can not only help produce more milk but also quality milk with necessary fat and Solid Not Fat apart from fat all other solids, like vitamins, minerals, protein (SNF)," he said, adding that the cost of milk depends upon the ratio of fat and SNF in the milk.
"More the fat and SNF, more the price the milk get," he added.The reaserch was also felt necessary due to decreasing milk production in the country recently. "Until some years ago, farmers used to have milk holiay due to excessive milk production," said Deepak Dhoj Khadka of Practical Action. "But the situation has reversed, Nepal imports milk from India," he said, adding that Practical Action is helping Probiotech to research on cattle feed under its Access to Market programme.
There are 7.1 million cattle and 4.6 million buffaloes in Nepal, according to the Ministry of Agriculture (2008-09). "Of the total, 0.9 million cattle and 1.1 million buffaloes are in milking stage," it said, adding that Nepal produces 413,919 metric tonne (MT) of milk from cattle and 103,1500 MT of milk from buffaloes. The cattles produce 1.5-2 litres per day and buffaloes three litres per day But after the cattles feed the new pelle feed, they started producing more milk upto 3.5 litres.
Domestic cattles have not been producing more milk due to the lack of breeding programme, quality fodder, fodder cultivation awareness, feed-concentrate that is not balanced and low management knowledge of farmers, according to Gautam.Due to lack of knowledge of dairy farmers on nutrient requirement of animals, they are underfeed resulting in to lower production, he added.
The programme also aims at delivering knowledge and skills to smallholder dairy farmers through 'Dairy Chautaris' -- an initiative of the Market Access to Smallholder farmers (MASF) Dairy Project which bring together technical experts and farmers for transfer of knowledge and access to services that is aimed at over 3,000 smallholder dairy farmers in Chitwan, Dhading, Gorkha and Tanahu.
Practical Action and Nimbus (Pro Bio Tech) have entered into a partnership to research, test and deliver appropriate low costs, high nutrition feed through the existing supply distribution channel of Pro Biotech Industries Pvt Ltd under the brand name Shakti feed.