Mher Melkonyan, deputy of the Armenia faction of the National Assembly, representative of the ARF Shirak Regional Committee, writes:
"Today, in Shirak Marz, milk is procured from villagers for 150-160 drams per liter. At the same time, the same milk is sold in stores for up to 900 drams. These numbers are not just market fluctuations. This is a structural imbalance that disrupts the entire agricultural chain and hits both the producer and the consumer. This is no longer a small economic issue. This is an examination of the effectiveness of state policy.
Animal husbandry has become a hopeless activity in the villages of Shirak. The peasant works almost without profit. As a result, many people are considering reducing or completely stopping livestock farming.
This is already a serious social signal.
In the structure of the cost of animal husbandry in the region, they have a significant weight:
- feed inflation,
- the increase in the price of fuel and energy carriers,
- expenses for veterinary services,
- cold storage and logistics load,
- additional storage costs during long winters.
The purchase price of 150 drams in many cases does not cover the full cost. This means that the farmer is working with minimum profitability or loss. Under these conditions, production becomes not a development activity, but a survival activity.
The milk market is characterized by centralized procurement and limited bargaining power for producers. When a farmer is an individual and does not have a cooperative structure, he depends on a few big players for procurement. The high level of retail price is not passed on to the manufacturer. This means that high profits are formed in the middle part of the chain, the structure of which is not transparent to the public.
As a result,
- the peasant is deprived of a fair price,
- the consumer pays a high price,
- added value is concentrated in a limited scope.
Shirak marz is not only an agricultural but also a socially vulnerable marz. The decline of animal husbandry here means:
- reduction of jobs in villages,
-acceleration of emigration of young people,
- emptying of villages,
- decrease in local production and increase in dependence on imports.
This is already a problem of food security. When a local producer is pushed out of the market, the country becomes more vulnerable to external shocks. This situation proves that the agricultural policy does not have an effective market regulation toolkit.
Missing are:
- minimum guaranteed procurement mechanisms,
- full control of the competition,
- transparent pricing requirements,
-systematic development of cooperatives.
The market self-regulates in favor of the strong at the expense of the weak.
Solving the problem requires a serious structural change.
- Establishing a minimum guaranteed procurement price based on actual cost.
- Strict anti-monopoly control of procurement and processing market.
-Financial and organizational support of agricultural cooperatives to create their own processing capacities.
- Encouraging regional processing small and medium enterprises so that the added value remains in place.
-Mandatory pricing transparency reporting from manufacturer to store.
150 drams cannot be used to estimate the work of a villager. This is not only an economic imbalance, but a violation of social justice.
If the government continues to ignore this problem, it will lose not only livestock but also rural vitality in Shirak. And that would be a serious failure of the state strategy.
The priority of the state should be the protection of the peasants and the provision of fair competition. Without it, it is not possible to have sustainable agriculture, a strong region and social solidarity."
