In the first six months of this year, 25.1 million kilograms of milk and milk products, worth almost 99.6 million BAM, were imported into our country.
For the same period, 34.3 million kilograms of the same products were exported for about 48.8 million BAM.
This was shown by the official data of the Administration for Indirect Taxation (ITA) of BiH.
Inverted values
For the sake of comparison, in the first six months of 2021, BiH imported 25.2 million kilograms of milk and milk products, worth 78.2 million BAM.
Nedzad Bico, president of the FBiH Farmers’ Association, told “Avaz” that BiH exports what is the cheapest, namely milk, while it imports cheese, which is the most expensive.
“We are incapable of producing cheese. Milk is the same in Austria and Bosnia and Herzegovina, we should base ourselves on cheese production and that is where the most money goes. We export practically raw milk at a miserable price. Instead of exporting it, we should produce cheese and sell more expensive goods,”says Bico.
He emphasizes that the state should not give away its products cheaply, and on the other hand, import much more expensive ones.
“With us, everything works the other way around, instead of being based on cheese production, we market it on the domestic market, so, after all, we also export at a high price, we export the cheapest milk,”concludes Bico.
Previously, dairy farmers from the FBiH, as well as from the Republika Srpska, pointed to the poor quality of imported milk.
In addition, an additional problem for the survival of many farms in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the uncontrolled rise in the prices of everything that goes into milk production.
Concentrates are more expensive, but so is fuel, while the purchase price of milk has remained unchanged in recent years.
