After the company Alqueria announced that it would suspend its operation in the department of Nari\u00f1o as of June 22, the Minister of Agriculture, Jhenifer Mojica, announced that she reached an agreement with the company to \u201ccontinue with the operation in the department until the placement\u201d of dairy products is achieved.<\/p>\n\n
As for him, Carlos Enrique Cavelier, president of the Alquer\u00eda Foundation, said that \u201cwe will not let go of the department until each of the farming families have their milk placed in the PAE, in other plants or for other uses\u201d.<\/p>\n\n
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Among the measures agreed upon and announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, the one that stands out is the purchase of liquid milk through a business roundtable in which national and local authorities will participate, as well as operators of the School Feeding Program (PAE, for its acronym in Spanish). It will be an anticipated scenario of public purchases, according to the Ministry.<\/p>\n\n
The news, welcomed by the Nari\u00f1o\u2019s dairy farmers, came after three associations related to the dairy industry, Analac, Dignidad Ganadera Colombiana, and Asoleche, raised the alarm about the situation of dairy farmers in Nari\u00f1o and the country in general.<\/p>\n\n
However, for these three associations, the sector\u2019s issues, and specifically those of Nari\u00f1o\u2019s dairy farmers, go beyond the decision taken by Alqueria.<\/p>\n\n
Milk production stockpiled by the industry has been dropping<\/h2><\/h2>\n\n
On June 13, Analac published a press release on its Twitter account, in which it expressed its concern about \u201ca challenging 2023\u201d and the \u201ccritical situation in the south of the country\u201d, and expressed its willingness to work with national and local authorities to establish \u201csupport for producers, the purchase of raw milk and the commercialization of dairy products\u201d.<\/p>\n\n
The association explained that, between January and April of this year, the production of milk collected by the industry fell by 6% compared to the same period in 2022. This decline has serious implications for the national economy, since, according to Asoleche, more than 800,000 families in Colombia produce, process, and\/or market milk and dairy products. The dairy chain also contributes 3.5% of Colombia\u2019s industrial GDP.<\/p>\n\n
The drop in the industry\u2019s milk production is due in part, as the association indicated, to the weather (after a harsh La Ni\u00f1a phenomenon and a few months of climate neutrality, the El Ni\u00f1o phenomenon is approaching), high production costs, marketing conditions, and inflation.<\/p>\n\n
Of the dairy departments, Nari\u00f1o and Cauca, whose producers supply the local market and send part of their production to several cities in the country, have been the most affected.<\/p>\n\n
This is due to the fact that, in addition to the aforementioned problems, dairy farmers in Nari\u00f1o and Cauca have had to face the collapse of the Pan-American Highway<\/strong>, whose solutions are still partial.<\/p>\n\n
Costs rise and prices paid to producers fall: Nari\u00f1o dairy farmers highly impacted<\/h2><\/h2>\n\n
Analac noted that, along with \u201chistorically high milk production costs\u201d, which in the first five months of 2023 were 9.8% higher than the same period last year, a downward trend has been seen since March in the prices paid to producers.<\/p>\n\n
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