Mumbai: Dairy farmers to hold meeting with Kisan Morcha to highlight milk prices

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Kisan Morcha, which had organised a "long march" to Mumbai last month to highlight the problems of tribal farmers, would be raising the issue of milk procurement rates next, said Dr Ajit Navale, one of its leaders, on Wednesday. Dairy farmers are selling milk for less than the government-prescribed rate and suffering a loss, he claimed.

"It has been more than one and a half months since we took out a long march of farmers from Nashik to Mumbai...The state government had promised (during the meetings held after the long march) that it would purchase milk at higher prices, but farmers are still selling milk to dairies at much lower prices," Navale said here.

"Hence we have decided to hold a meeting of dairy farmers in Ahmednagar tomorrow to discuss the issue. We will announce our next step after the meeting," he said in a statement here.

"Recently the people from a village in Aurangabad district, Lakhganga, protested against the low purchase rate of milk. Milk is purchased (by private or cooperative dairies) at Rs 21-24 per litre, which is at least Rs 10 less than the government's price formula for procurement.

"We want this formula (government-prescribed rate) to be implemented across dairies so that farmers earn more," Navale said.

"On average, 123 lakh litres of milk is procured in the state every day. One can imagine the cumulative loss of farmers as most of them are selling milk at lower rates," he said.

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Edited by mid-day online desk, with inputs from PTI

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