Ranchers lost 1.2 million liters of milk a day due to protest

Portugaldairy farmer San Camilo Irrigation, The Jewel (Arequipa), for 10 days, he discarded around 600 liters of milk a day, which has meant a loss of S/7,200 in this same period. This, after the Gloria company suspended the collection of milk due to damage caused to the infrastructure of its Majes plant during the day of protests on Monday, December 12.

Although the company resumed the collection of the dairy product on Thursday, the situation for small farmers is still critical, says Portugal.

“To be able to lower the production of our cattle, we have withdrawn the concentrate (…), it will take another 10 or 12 days for the cows to recover their normal production”, comment. He explains that cows that used to produce 38 liters of milk a day now produce 26 liters.

The same points out Nivia Vargaspresident of the Association of Dairy Farmers of Peru (Agalep), who also estimates that during the protests about 1 million 200,000 liters of milk were lost daily in this region.

While Gianni Simoni Rosespresident of the Arequipa Regional Milk Councilcalculates that “of the 6,000 livestock families that deliver their milk to Gloria and Laive, 2,500 will not resume the activity because they will not have a way to recapitalize their investments because they have dumped their milk on the ground.”

dark stage

What happened in recent weeks adds to the already complex situation of dairy farmers who during this year have even had to bear the price cut per liter of milk up to S/0.95 in the last fortnight of November, according to Nivia Vargas.

In addition, they continue to face the increase in the price of the main foods such as bran, which previously cost S/37 and currently reaches S/57 per bag. This imbalance between cost and benefit leads Vargas to affirm that “dairy farming is disappearing in our country”.

For this reason, contrary to the optimism that characterizes the expectations of a new year, he maintains that “2023 is uncertain for dairy farmers.” Among his main demands, he highlights that the base price of milk reaches S / 1.52 per liter.

Drought continues to kill cattle

In the north of the country, the drought continues to be severe with farmers who raise cattle for meat. in the district of The Slaughter (Piura)1,200 of the 6,000 head of cattle in this jurisdiction have died, according to Cesar Cisnerospresident of the Association of Ranchers of Alto Piura.

“No one buys the rest because it is not in a position to go to the markets”it states.

For this reason, they ask Midagri to, within the framework of the SD no. 122-2022-PCMwhich declares a state of emergency in 11 districts of Piura due to the drought, provides them with food for their cattle.

However, they denounce that the validity of this norm ended on December 13 without having been implemented.