Dairy farmers are “with very good billings”receiving on average around US$0.43 and US$0.44 per liter of milk sent, but the good values of 2014 have not yet been reached and Reaching a good margin that allows producers not to leave the sector continues to be a challengegiven that production costs are high, he commented to The Observer Fabián Hernández, president of the Society of Producers of Milk of Florida (SPLF).
“Drum farmers continue to be lost, it’s like a bloodletting that doesn’t stop,” he stressed. and commented that there are several elements that make the sector unattractive for generational change, among them the lack of an adequate profit margin and union conflicts such as the one that is happening in the industry.
He said, union dispute between the Federation of Dairy Industry Workers (FTIL) and the Uruguayan Chamber of the Dairy Industry (CILU) “it is something that really wears out and tires” producers.
500 farmers less
In the last 10 years the dairy sector lost 500 producersHernandez assured.
commented that it is necessary to make the sector attractive to new generationswhich will be achieved by seeking new international markets and with support policies that give stability to the sector, for example long-term financing to buy fields, he stressed.
From the SPLF they have seen a good receptivity of Banco República with respect to this last issue and to the proposals of the producers.
For Hernández, “in this political line we all have to continue working together so that the sector continues to grow, maintain and increase producerswhich is the most difficult, but at least stop the bleeding”.
Part of the fact that new dairy farmers do not enter the field has to do with the feeling that producers express to their children, “that we are not doing well, because in recent years we have had a very bad time,” he mentioned, and that discourages young people.
john samuel
In the last 10 years, 500 farmers have been lost.
slow recovery
Hernandez also stated that the dairy sector is slowly recovering after seven years of crisis, but producers still have “a very heavy backpack of debt”which complicates their ability to reinvest.
“The dairy sector needs reinvestment, it is something that needs to be done and we are not being able to do it,” he stressed, and concluded that the loss of producers “is a concern that concerns us all, the political sector, the unions, the producers and industries”.
