INALE faces funding pressure after Uruguay lawmakers reject plan
Uruguay’s lower house rejected article 346 of the 2025 fiscal-accountability and budget-execution bill, which sought to alter how the National Milk Institute, or INALE, is financed. The proposal failed to secure the votes required during debate in the Chamber of Representatives.
The rejected provision would have taken effect on January 1st 2027. It proposed directing half of the revenue from the tax on dairy-product exports to INALE and the other half to the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay (LATU).
The article also called for the abolition of a fee currently collected by the Bank of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. Revenue from that charge is subsequently transferred to LATU under the existing arrangement.
Justino Zavala, a member of the Canelones Milkmen’s Association board and the producers’ delegate on INALE’s governing board, described the institute’s financial position as difficult. “INALE has an expiry date of December 31st; we have very few resources to continue supporting the institute,” he told the radio programme Tiempo de Cambio on Rural radio.
The statement referred to INALE’s available funding and did not represent a formal decision to close the institute on that date. The information published by the dairy-news outlet said that the institute’s current financial horizon reaches the end of 2026.
The bill will now be considered by the Senate. Zavala said producers hoped senators would reverse the decision, allowing the proposal to return to the lower house for final approval. “We hope this is reversed in the Senate and that, when it returns to the lower house for final approval, we will no longer face the resistance we encountered this time,” he said.
INALE brings together public and private representatives from Uruguay’s dairy chain. Its work includes producing and distributing sector information, coordinating institutions, and contributing to policies related to dairy production. The financing debate therefore concerns the resources available for those functions as well as the proposed allocation of export-tax revenue.
