Due to losses of almost one million soles per day, the Association of Dairy Farmers of Peru (AGALEP), which brings together more than 17,000 ranchers from the main dairy areas of the country, announces a first mobilization this Wednesday, February 2, starting at 9 in the morning in the Congress of the Republic, to demand that the State help them to prevent the extinction of dairy farming.
Representatives of AGALEP will meet with the Agrarian Commission to ask the President of the Republic, Pedro Castillo, to take immediate notice of the damage caused to hundreds of cattle families in Cañete, since many of them have begun to sell their animals to support their families. and look for new forms of work to survive.
For this reason, they ask the State that livestock and family agriculture be declared in emergency and that evaporated milk be produced from fresh milk as is done worldwide. In this way, unfair competition with powdered milk can be avoided, to the detriment of producers and thus prevent farmers from selling their animals, making dairy farming disappear.
“We reject the use of the image of ranchers for eminently commercial purposes of the dairy industry. No rancher is a member of the private industry, which pays double what it pays for domestic milk for imported milk. 15 days ago in Cañete, the Nestle group stopped collecting 24,000 liters of milk because they prefer to use powdered milk. We ask the government to intervene so that they begin to collect milk again, which is an activity that the people of Cañetas have had for fifteen years and 235 cattle families will be left without work,” said Nivia Vargas, president of AGALEP.
For this reason, the dairy cattle union announces that this week’s concentration would be the first of various mobilizations that will take place in all regions of the country, if the indifference of the authorities continues and that they will fight so that President Castillo fulfills his promise campaign for the benefit of hundreds of workers and producers.