Amul and Mother Dairy do not anticipate hike in milk prices in near future

The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets dairy products under the brand name of Amul, has decided to hike the milk prices by Rs 2 per litre across all six brands being sold in major pockets of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The decision to hike the price was taken in a meeting of all the unions, an official said.

Dr K Rathnam, Managing Director, Kheda District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd, also known as Amul Dairy, one of the constituent unions of GCMMF, said, "With this, the Amul Gold milk will now be available for Rs 52 per litre, Shakti for Rs 48, Taza for Rs 40, Slim and Trim for Rs 38, Tea Special for Rs 48 and Cow Milk for Rs 44 per litre."

He said, "The new prices will come into force from tomorrow in Anand, Ahmedabad and Saurashtra markets of Gujarat as well as in Mumbai and Pune region of Maharastra."

Other district cooperatives in the state, such as Sumul Dairy in Surat, will roll out new price list within four days, Rathnam added.

This is the second such hike within eight months by GCMMF. In June 2016, the milk prices had been hiked by Rs 2 per litre.

According to Rathnam, the price hike was necessary to compensate for the recent increase in the milk procurement prices paid to farmers by the federation.

Rathnam said, "Recently, we had started giving Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 more per litre to farmers to procure milk from them. We accepted farmers' demand of increasing the procurement price because they are hit by an increase of almost 25 per cent in the price of cattle fodder."

New Delhi: Milk prices which has seen a rise in the next two years is likely to become stable in the coming year, according to a report published in the Economic Times.

"We don't see milk prices increasing in 2015, the way it happened over the past two years. We are currently procuring 172 lakh litres of milk per day and by January; we expect milk procurement to touch a record 190 lakh litres a day," RS Sodhi, MD, GCMMF told ET.

The company had a target to procure 155 lakh litres per day by 2020 and has already crossed that. Not only this, the price of skimmed milk powder has also gone down to Rs 170 per Kg which was earlier 320 per kg.

"Private dairies are not procuring milk or are paying 30-40 per cent less prices to farmers. Hence, cooperative dairies like Amul, Saras of Rajasthan, Sanchi of Madhya Pradesh and Nandni of Karnataka are getting record milk quantity," added Sodhi.

An official from the agriculture ministry said milk production and productivity recorded by cooperatives have increased this year. "The 14 dairy cooperatives as on October 31 procured 381 lakh kg milk a day against 334 lakh kg in the corresponding period of 2013," he quoted.

"For the 6-8 months, milk prices will remain stable, easing out inflationary concerns," Devendra Shah, Chairman, Parag Milk Foods, who owns the 'Go Cheese' brand, told ET.

"Compared to annual export of 1.25 lakh tonnes SMP, this year we should be able to export only 25,000 tonnes. This will leave surplus supply for the domestic market," Sanjay Dhingra, Chairman, Kwality Ltd, told ET.