Dairy farmers lamented the lack of support of the Department of Education (DepEd) on a current proposal to source milk from multinational companies for the government’s School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP).
In a letter to DepEd Secretary Leonor Magtolis-Briones, the Dairy Confederation of the Philippines (DCP) said Filipino milk farmers stand to lose the opportunity to earn P250 million from the policy.
“This is in violation of the purpose and spirit of RA 11037. We strongly object to this sudden and unilateral implementation of the program under the 2022 GAA (General Appropriations Act) . The schedule will unfairly prevent the local farmers, cooperatives and local milk processing plants from supplying the milk requirements of the SBFP under the 2022 GAA,” said DCP director Danilo V. Fausto.
RA 11037 or the Act institutionalizes the National Feeding Program for Undernourished Children in Public Day Care Center, states unequivocally that as far as practicable, milk for the SBFP shall be sourced from local farmers and processors.
The national feeding program schools is scheduled to run from April to June 2022.
Local dairy farmers, processors and cooperatives started serving the SBFP during GAA 2019 in the last quarter of 2020 and continued on to GAA 2020 and then to GAA 2021 which is currently ongoing.
“They cannot possibly be expected to supply the GAA 2022 milk requirement in because the 2021 GAA is still ongoing and the milk is still being produced and delivered by them,” Fausto said.
He explained that the milk feeding program for 2021 is still ongoing until June 2022 due to the delays caused by the pandemic. The proposed feeding program for 2022 will overlap with the ongoing milk feeding using the budget for 2021. Othel V. Campos
This will in effect allow foreign multinationals to come in since “we will have to finish first 2021 up to June, thus, local dairy farmers cannot supply the April to June request of DepEd.”
The DCP alleged that the DepEd asked the National Dairy Authority and Philippine Carabao Center to sign a certification that local dairy farmers cannot supply the milk to allow the entry of foreign multinational dairy companies dislodging the local dairy farmers for the GAA budget 2022.
“The very spirit why RA11037 was created…to give livelihood and income opportunities for our local farmers. Local dairy farmers can supply the milk required under the program.”. DepEd wants to implement the milk feeding program only for 16 days, while the recommendation of the National Food and Nutrition Council is 90-120 days to have real and meaningful impact on the health of school children.
Furthermore, majority of the local dairy farmers and cooperatives have reinvested their earnings to expand their capacities.
“And now they will be shut out and excluded under the program, consequently resulting in losing millions of pesos for these dairy cooperatives, turning their expansion to white elephants,” said Fausto.
“If they allow multinationals to enter, the rest of 2022 beginning July to December, the local dairy farmers & cooperatives will be shut out and excluded, with the multinational taking advantage of the milk feeding program funded by tax payers money,” he added.
DCP claimed that the proposed policy will double multinationals’ share to the milk feeding program in 2022 to 41.89 percent equivalent to P442.692 million in milk sales, from 19.07 percent in 2021
