KATHMANDU: Farmers of Bhojpur district have been struggling without a market for milk they have produced. Price of milk has remained constant for the past 10 years while prices of other commodities have skyrocketed, they complained.

They have demanded a rise in prices of milk on a par with other commodities. “Price of animal feeds has increased considerably. But, milk price has not increased for so long. As a result, we have been affected to the point of closing our business,” said a farmer Ganesh Bista, who has raised cows at Bhojpur Municipality-4.

He is into animal husbandry for the past five years. Animal feeds have witnessed 25 to 30 percent rise in price, according to him. A litre of milk is sold for Rs 70 to Rs 100 in the market. “But, we farmers get only Rs 45 to Rs 55 per litre,” he complained.

Although the stakeholders have not been paying attention to increase milk price, they are involving to increase the price of dairy products.
Bista said when the price of edible oil, ghee, cottage cheese has increased by double, the price the farmers receive remains the same.

“We farmer are in problems after the stakeholders did not pay attention in increasing price of milk”, shared Bista.

He added, “We produce milk through hard work. Market price of milk does not increase. The price of a packet of cooking oil has doubled. The money received by farmers after selling milk is not enough to buy animal feed.”

Some of the farmers have been rearing cattle with a target of producing milk on commercial scale, but they complained that they could not make income as per their investment and hard-work. There is no environment to take milk produced by the farmers to market easily.

Locals of Bokhim, Dawa, Pokhare and Dhunge as well as other places have been doing animal rearing even in a traditional way, but they are not found eager to sell their milk bringing it to market.

Though adequate quantity of milk is produced in rural areas of the district, it is not possible to the farmers to sell milk due to various reasons.

Farmers said they would involve in milk production in a commercial manner if the local government create appropriate environment for its market. (RSS)