The price of milk will not increase in 2023, said the National Association of Milk Producers, Analac

Faced with the rumors that circulated about the increase in milk in the country, a version that spoke of an increase that could be 26% on the liquidation of raw milk prices) the executive president of the National Association of Milk ProducersAnalc, Felipe Pinilla, clarified on Saturday March 4 that the prices of this product will not increase, giving consumers peace of mind.

As a first step, President Pinilla began by explaining the rules of the game that the sector manages in terms of milk prices:

“The dairy sector in Colombia has certain rules of the game that come from 2012 and what they are looking for is that our producers have a minimum price, a minimum price range, with which they will sell their milk, allowing them to cover production costs and rewarding them for the quality of the milk they produce. In this sense, there are incentives to produce very good quality milk. That’s the rule we have,” he began by explaining to Caracol Radio, in the program Caracol Al Campo, President Pinille.

But this week, he continued, the The Minister of Agriculture He said the price per gram of protein fat and total solids in milk would be updated, meaning that this minimum price range necessarily increases for the milk producer.

“Here is the question: will prices go up? What impact will this have? And the answer to that is the increase has already happened at the end of the year 2022. Seeing the news from the Ministry of Agriculture, doing the calculations and seeing that our country is diversified, both in quantity and quality of dairy production by region, this minimum price could fluctuate in poor quality milk about $1,500 to 1,600 pesos and in very good quality milk nearly 1,800 pesos (with an average of about 1,740 pesos), he advanced in his explanation to snail radio President Pinille

The decision that the national milk council based on the rules of the game, and compare it with the prices we see today, a difference is noticeable “because today we see prices in different regions above 2,000 pesos and in other well above this value.

“So what we see here is that the total price that will continue to be paid to the producer will be, as we see today, slightly over $2,000. However, if there were to be a season of sharp decline in producer prices, this range that he mentioned should not fall, he specified in this regard.

And finally, he explained that this measure, which has caused confusion but which must be clarified as soon as possible, “what it represents is insurance for this situation, especially for the small producer who suffers the most when the prices paid to them go down. This is where the update is generated and in that sense, given how prices are today, inflationary pressure should not be passed on to the consumer. What you have to do is continue with the rules of the game and with the times that these rules have imposed on us. There should therefore be no impact in this direction vis-à-vis the consumer,” concluded the Executive Chairman of Analac.