Policy failure puts farmers on the receiving end again

The best starting point would be to cut down the oligopoly tendrils that have slowly found a new home in the poorly regulated dairy industry.

If we permit a situation where two or three processors sit down to decide what the industry should pay farmers for their milk, then it is only a matter of time before farmers abandon dairy farming altogether.

Interestingly, the current crisis reveals the short memory among those who run the dairy sector.

Hardly a year ago, processors who are now underpaying farmers for their deliveries called a Press conference to warn that they risked closing down their factories if farmers were not prevailed upon to increase milk supply.

At that time, there was limited supply of milk in the country and the witty processors even had the temerity of using the regulatory arm of the KDB to force farmers to scale down the quantity of the product which was sold to informal outlets.

The current glut presents a fertile ground for industry regulators to craft a policy to address - not only the milk saga – but also the seasonal variations in demand and supply of all agro-based products in the country.