EU farmers escalate milk price protest
French dairy farmers handed out 22,000 litres of free milk in central Paris on Tuesday, and explained their predicament to the public.
Farmer organisations said more than half of milk producers have held back supplies in some French regions, but milk processors said no more than 10% had taken part, and the effect on supply was minor.
Earlier this week, European Milk Board (EMB) chief Romuald Schaber helped to create “lakes” of milk surrounded by burning bales of hay and model cows at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.
EMB claimed about 80,000 dairy farmers across Europe joined the second week of a milk supply boycott.
EMB demands 40 cents a litre for milk, quotas to be restricted, and surplus products bought up immediately.
Its leaders rejected last week’s EU decisions to allow member states provide up to €15,000 to individual dairy farmers to assist them through the income crisis, and to allow dairy farm restructuring be financed from the portion of any superlevy payments corresponding to quota which has been bought-up and put in national reserves.
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said keeping milk quotas (which will rise 1% annually before disappearing in 2015) is not an option.
She said the dairy industry is recovering in the EU.
“Up until now our protests have been going the right way. But without change, our actions will harden and I don’t know how it will end,” said Erwin Schoepges, president of MIG, which represents Belgian dairy farmers.
As farmers in eight major dairy producing countries dumped tens of millions of litres of milk per day, Schoepges said, “We are now asking how many litres have to be thrown away before politicians start to react.”
