KATHMANDU, June 3: Nepal’s dairy business has been witnessing a freefall in terms of demand due to the prohibitory orders and impacts of COVID-19 at a time when the government has announced plans to make the country self-reliant in milk production in the next two years.
Speaking at a program organized by the National Dairy Development Board on Tuesday, Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development Padma Kumari Aryal said the government is committed to increasing milk production which is short of 11 liters per person per year.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Nepal’s milk consumption should be at least 91 liters per capita per year to be self–reliant in milk.
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But the farmers have been at the receiving end as they are not getting the market to sell their products. As a result, they are compelled to go into ‘milk holiday’ due to low demand on various pretexts.
According to the Dairy Industries Association Nepal, on an average, milk worth Rs 100 million is going waste daily at present due to the fall in demand triggered by the prohibitory orders imposed by the government. “The daily demand has fallen from 3.1 million liters to 1.3 million liters,” said Pralhad Dahal, general secretary of the association.
The Nepali dairy sector contributes around nine percent to the country’s gross domestic product. Of the total production of 6.2 million liters across the country, 17 percent is being sold in the formal market, 33 percent is sold informally while the remaining 50 percent is used for domestic consumption.
Dahal said poor market mechanisms and lack of infrastructure to convert raw milk into milk-powder in sufficient amounts is affecting the entire dairy sector of the country.
