While considering the summary on 'Rising Milk Prices Without Benefit to Small Farmers', submitted by Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development in a meeting held on January 12, the ECC decided to form a committee comprising all stakeholders and provincial governments to develop a workable mechanism to control the rising milk prices.
During discussion on the summary, the ECC noted that production of milk was not equal throughout the country and therefore the proposal to fix uniform price of milk was not workable. "Therefore, some work is still required to be done on this proposal," the ECC said.
Pursuant to ECC's decision taken on July 28, 2009, the Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development had circulated the recommendations formulated by the Ministerial Committee to the Provincial Livestock Departments for their views and further arranged a consultative meeting on August 18, 2009.
ECC was informed that after detailed discussion and agreements of Provincial Livestock Departments, Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development proposed that (i) a Livestock Prices Commission should be established in the Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development to work out actual cost of milk/meat production at the national level on twice-a-year basis.
The proposed Livestock Prices Commission should have its regional offices in the provinces. The cost of milk production should be calculated province-wise and circulated among the Provincial Livestock Departments and District Market Committees;
(ii) Number of Members of the District Market Committees which determine the appropriate sale price of fresh milk may be increased to include local progressive small dairy farmers, concerned District Livestock Officers (DLO)/representative of the Provincial Livestock Departments, feed manufacturers, milk traders etc;
(iii) Through public-private partnership, the small dairy farmers should be organised at the Village/Union Council level in the form of Milk Producer Group (M PG's)/Community Organisations (COs)/Dairy Co-operatives and directly linked with the bulk milk buyers.
Performance and functioning of these MPGs/COs should be regularly evaluated by the concerned project authorities (Livestock and Dairy Development Board/ Pakistan Dairy Development Company/ Planning Commission as well as by the concerned DLO of the Provincial Livestock Departments.
This monitoring and evaluation should be commissioned by the concerned project authorities, in order to have a meaningful and better quality evaluation report; (iv) A regular programme for the education and training of small dairy farmers should be initiated by the Provincial Livestock Departments.
Under this programme, small dairy farmers may be trained in feeding and management practice, disease control measures and economic milk production practices. For this purpose Dairy Farmers Training Centers (DFTC) should be established initially at district level.