Political Milk; Restrepo I = Uribita III

Aurelio Suàrez Montoya, Bogotá, March 1, 2011

(Translated by Emily Schmitz, a CSN Volunteer Translator. Edited by Teresa Welsh, a CSN
Volunteer Editor.)

In a teleconference on August 3, 2008, Andrés Felipe Arias asked, in a question
stigmatizing fifty percent of milk traded by ¨information channels¨ as poisonous: ¨What am
I going to give my baby?¨

Along the same lines, on November 28, 2010, in the Fedegan Congress the Restrepo
ministry claimed that ¨informality¨ is the principle ¨bottle neck;¨ or rather, that both
coincide in attributing to similar conditions in the chain.

On the contrary, the FAO says that the global scale of the problem is the ¨vulnerability
of producers¨ against large-scale industry. Colombia is no exception. One of every two
livestock breeders has less tan ten cattle and each cow produces an average of five liters
every day, the majority by rural women complementing family incomes. The majority
of these animals serve neither solely for meat nor milk, but instead hold a ¨dual purpose.¨
All of these factors limit the existence of world-class herds such as those that Creole
technology can provide for. High estimates average that the oligarchy controls around 85
percent of all pasteurized milk.

In Colombia, Brazil and India, other channels with smaller traders, low income consumers
and small derived signatures exist. This portion of the market is under the watch of large
companies. Although the WHO has considered that boiled bottled milk is sanitary, the
government has issued limitations. There have been dairy agreements accepted in six
NAFTA areas, allowing affiliates to import from home headquarters, although the country
is self-sufficient. The presence of whey and other misleading ingredients found in dairy
products is lax in stores and supermarkets. This lack of authentic nutrients destroys the
faith of consumers. Worse yet, when it had not yet been enacted, in 2011, milk producers
were not paid official prices. It is the legacy of Arias that Restrepo continues.

Utilizing both mentioned means and others as well, the neoliberal interest is to replace a
significant portion of national dairy production with foreign producers. The industry lacks
the capacity to produce current yearly levels, around 6,500 million liters, and raises the
question of where lacking percentages, which will be outlawed March 10, will come from.
Many organizations understand the importance of demanding a political sector that favors
the most vulnerable and guarantees national nutrition security, including the need to unify
in order to resist aligning public and private sectors, which will create a ¨new world¨ of
dairy production. It will be a transformation and conquest beneficial to the powerful alone,
a painful pulse for the future that begins March 9.

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