Farmers, who rear milch animals, in Tiruchi and Perambalur districts, stare at huge loss due to drastic scaling down of procurement by dairy firms in the wake of lockdown.
There are about 30 private dairy firms in Tiruchi and Perambalur districts. According to a rough estimate, they procure about 10 lakh litres of milk every day directly from the farmers. Besides meeting the residential and commercial requirements in Tiruchi district, they supply milk in sachets in Chennai, Kancheepuram, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga and other parts of the State.
Since the enforcement of curfew on Tuesday, most of the dairy companies have drastically reduced procurement as they find it difficult to market the milk mainly due to closure of restaurants, eateries, confectioneries and tea stalls across the State.
Though there is no bar on transport of essential commodities, most milk transporters are said to be reluctant to operate tankers due to problems in inter-State and inter-district movement of transports.
Vijay Dairy, one of the leading firms in Tiruchi district, has scale down procurement by 50%. It just procures about 50,000 litres a day as against one lakh litres. Most companies procure only for domestic supply.
“Though milk comes under the list of essential commodities, we come across various hurdles in transportation and other issues due to the lockdown. Hence, we have no other option but to reduce the procurement,” says J. Mathan Mohan, Managing Director, Vijay Dairy, Tiruchi.
As a sequel to it, several farmers sell milk at throwaway prices in their respective areas, thereby causing huge loss.
As against the average procurement price of ₹31 a litre, milk is sold at ₹10 -15 a litre in villages.
“I suffer a loss of ₹900 a day as no company comes forward to procure milk. So far I have incurred a loss of ₹2,700 since Saturday. Just imagine the total loss during the remaining curfew period. It is really a rough period for us,” says I. Raja of Naganallur near Thuraiyur, who has five cows.
However, the Tiruchi District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union (Aavin) continues to procure milk as usual.
A senior official of the Aavin said that there has so far been no change in volume of procurement from the member societies due to curfew restrictions.
