Dairy farming, which has been proposed and encouraged on an extensive basis in the district as an alternative livelihood for the drought-ridden farmers is fast losing its charm among the farmers, if the recent agitations by them are any indication.
In all, more than 35,000 farmers are involved in commercial dairy farming of which close to 10,000 sell their milk to the Andhra Pradesh Dairy Development Cooperative Federation (APDDCF).
The Federation has been procuring around 50,000 litres (50 kl) of milk during the lean season and a little over that during the peak season, having a pasteurising capacity of 50 kl per day.
Besides the APDDCF which is obligated to buy all the milk brought to it by the farmers, the private sector dairies buy around 80 kl per day from the farmers while private milk vendors who cater directly to individual houses — comprising primarily buffalo milk — buy around 120 kl per day.
The Centre and the State government, which thought of dairy farming as an alternative and dependable source of livelihood for the farmers, encouraged the same through extensive bank linkages and subsidies from Nabard, indeed increasing the earnings of quite a few farmers.
However, post bifurcation, dairy farmers, especially those attached to the Federation are a disgruntled lot as it has reduced the quantity of milk it purchases. It has also not been paying the farmers promptly.
“The government hasn’t released funds to process payments of the farmers. Yes, payments for all the farmers are pending for a period of almost three fortnights. Our hands are tied,” said a senior officer of the Federation, speaking The Hindu on condition of anonymity.
Speaking to The Hindu , Deputy Director of the APDDCF at Anantapur Nageswara Rao said milk to the tune of 35 to 40 kl was used to be sent to the plant at Hyderabad earlier.
Now it was being shifted to a conversion plant at Ongole where the milk was being converted into milk powder and butter.
“I don’t have an option to even go back to cultivating groundnut as I have converted my land into growing grass for the animals. Now this is my only livelihood. If they don’t pay, I don’t know what else to do,” said Narayana Reddy, a dairy farmer of the Raptadu mandal, even as the government is yet to come up with an alternative plan to mitigate the situation.
Meanwhile, the dairy farmers are up in arms against the ‘careless’ attitude of the officials who seem to be hardly bothered about the travails of the dairy farmers.
Content Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/dairy-farmers-find-the-going-tough/article8777109.ece
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