"Peasant revolts" and the tough stance of local authorities on increasing procurement prices for milk have yielded the first modest results.
Over the 8 months of the current year, the weighted average price of milk in Volyn increased to 1041 hryvnias per ton (according to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, across Ukraine overall — 1085.9 hryvnias). By this indicator, our region has moved from 20th place to 13th, surpassing all other regions of the Western region except Ternopil Oblast. As of today, the highest prices have formed in Ivanychi, Horokhiv, Volodymyr-Volynskyi and Lutsk districts — over 1100 hryvnias per ton, however they continue to remain low in Shatsk, Kamin-Kashyrskyi and Liuboml districts — up to 750 hryvnias per ton of delivered milk.
Outlining the general situation on the milk market in the region during a regular staff meeting at the regional state administration, the head of the main department of agro-industrial development, Anatolii Arshulik, noted that the region produced 363 thousand tons of milk, which constitutes 100.4 percent compared to the analogous period of last year. Agricultural formations sold 52.3 thousand tons of milk for processing to dairy industry enterprises, or 102.9 percent compared to last year.
Unfortunately, a minimum procurement price for milk has still not been fixed at the national level. The regional conciliation commission submitted proposals to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy to set it at the level of 1000 hryvnias per ton. However, at the expanded meeting of the ministry's conciliation commission, a unanimous opinion on this could not be reached. According to the deputy head of the regional state administration, Vitalii Zaremba, perhaps the only reason for this is Ukraine's aspiration to join the WTO, which envisages somewhat different economic criteria and could turn into a number of additional problems for the peasant.
Oleksandr PYROZHYK