Kuwait Times

Published Date: November 10, 2009
By Nisreen Zahreddine, Staff writer

KUWAIT: Commerce minister Ahmad Al-Haroun recently announced that the price of milk is to be raised at local co-operatives. Whether this measurement is the result of the global economic crisis and the consequent falling markets or has other origins does not actually matters. What matters is that many people will have to spend larger amounts of their budget on milk from now on.

A real crisis is hitting Kuwaiti dairy farmers' milk production levels, with more than five tons of fresh milk being dumped every day by the company purchasing the milk from them after the company's processing plant was burnt down, meaning that it will be unable to buy and process milk from the farmers for at least another four months.

On the subject of rising milk prices at local Cooperative Society outlets, Talal Al Enzi, the general manager at the Sharq Co-op denies any significant price increase for any products to date, but warns that sharp price rises are coming shortly. He blames this on rising oil prices, saying, "The rise in oil prices will affect us all as consumers.

Regarding the milk crisis effects on local farmers, Al-Enzi predicted that the government would quickly introduce supportive measures to purchase the milk from them, adding, "KDD is still supplying Co-ops with fresh milk, while milk powder is produced outside Kuwait.

Al-Enzi asserted that the Cooperative Societies' management refuses to impose any unnecessary rise in consumer product prices, not only milk, but explained that the problem ultimately lies with companies' refusal to supply goods at the previous prices, meaning that the Co-ops end up with empty shelves.

The Co-op manager also insisted that customers are largely indifferent about the price factor, caring far more about finding the goods they need on the store shelves, even at high prices: "Customers keep on saying, 'Co-ops have no right to take decisions not to purchase certain products; they should be there and we should have the right to decide if we want it or not,'" he told the Kuwait Times. He expected that the consumers will start complaining when the oil price rises more than now, and this will hap
pen soon, in his opinion.

On one hand, then, companies are taking advantage of steadily rising oil prices, while on the other farmers are waiting for the government's plan to solve their problems with wasted products. No serious action looks likely to be taken until the powers that be decide that the time has come to save both farmers and consumers.