Dairy farmers call for regulation of milk farm gate prices

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Dairy farmers have asked government to control farm gate prices of milk.

The matter came up during a meeting convened by Dairy farmers under the Livestock Development Forum mostly from Ankole cattle corridor in Kampala on Monday to discuss the fluctuating milk prices.

Apparently, milk processors and brokers are buying milk from farmers at between Shillings 300 and Shillings 700 per liter following a fall in prices.

Ben Twine, the chairman of the Livestock Development Forum, says the current milk prices can hardly cover their production costs.

Emmanuel Kyeishe, the chairperson Kiruhura Dairy Farmers Union, said the prices are set by the processors who dictate both what to pay farmers and the price of the final milk products.

Kyeishe, who called for government intervention into their challenges, said there’s an urgent need for establishing market structures for milk and a policy to regulate processors since the policy they are using that was formulated in 1986 is out of touch with the current reality.

There are 12 licensed milk processing companies buying milk from either individual farmers or those organized under informal small cooperatives in the milk farming villages.

At the meeting, the farmers said in the short term, they will have to meet with the processors and agree on new prices or they will withhold their milk if they don’t come to agree by September 07. Twine says they want government to superintend over these negotiations.

Figures from the Dairy Development Authority show that by October 2018, Uganda was producing 2.2 billion liters of milk a year.

As a result, Uganda has been exporting some milk with figures showing that Kenya alone takes 80,000 liters of unprocessed milk from Uganda every day.

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