en.Wedoany.com Reported - Ricardo de Izaguirre, President of the National Dairy Institute (Inale), has proposed a plan to consolidate the current fragmented dairy funds into a single, unified special fund for irrigation, counter-cyclical funds, and environmental issues, with joint management by producers, the industry, and the state.
The plan, based on consolidating existing fragmented industry funds, establishes a committee to evaluate and guide projects, clarifying the use of funds. A core component involves managing resources from the deduction on priced milk. Currently, the resources generated by the 2.45-peso-per-liter deduction lack a clear and efficient direction for use. In a conversation with the Informe Tardáguila report, de Izaguirre stated that he has submitted a plan to allocate these funds to projects submitted to the committee.
The identified priority areas are irrigation, counter-cyclical funds, and environmental issues. Environmental issues are increasingly important on the industry agenda, he noted, pointing to challenges production systems face during rainy seasons or periods of excess water. Currently, 6% of milk arriving at plants comes from farms with roofing or partially confined systems, mainly in coastal areas, and this trend is expected to grow.
The plan is to merge the priced milk resources with other existing funds, including FFDSAL, Fogale, and FRIL, into a single, unified Dairy Development Fund. The committee managing this fund will be composed of representatives from the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Livestock, the industry, and producers. In its first year of operation (2027), the initial funding is estimated to be slightly over $3 million, but the fund size will decrease over time as liquid milk consumption declines by approximately 10% annually.
De Izaguirre acknowledged that $3 million is insufficient for a counter-cyclical fund, recalling that in 2015, Conaprole invested $50 million, which was quickly exhausted. He also reviewed the 2018 model: that year, the industry allocated $36 million, with $6 million going to small-scale producers, $3 million to the counter-cyclical fund, and $27 million to Fogale. Subsequently, an additional $9 million was allocated to establish FRIL (Dairy Transformation Fund) to support four companies: Granja Pocha, Claldy, Calcar, and Coleme. This fund currently has approximately $20 million in operation, and starting in July, these resources may also be incorporated into the new system.
The plan must be submitted by the Ministry of Livestock to Parliament for consideration. De Izaguirre confirmed this is the necessary path, and the Institute is working towards this goal. The objective is to avoid the historical difficulty of efficiently using fragmented funds and to create a tool that the industry can draw upon when urgently needed.
