September 11, 2009

The European Milk Board (EMB), representing milk producer organisations from eight European countries, has announced that they will go on a massive strike to block dairies and withhold milk from the market.

 

Declaring that "enough is enough", the EMB on Thursday (Sept 10) lashed out at the EU Commission's less-than-effective measures to help farmers.

 

One such measure was the purchasing of dairy products into intervention, which had cost taxpayers millions of euros but failed to raise prices for milk producers.

 

An EMB statement said countless dairy farmers in Europe had been struggling for months but the European Council and the EU Commission had only wasted money on unsuitable measures and blindly pursue their policy of deregulation.

 

The EMB supports reducing milk quotas progressively until milk supply is tight enough to force processors to pay prices that cover the cost of production.

 

President of the French Association of Independent Milk Producers, Pascal Massol, said his members would resort to any measures necessary to achieve these aims, while German president of the EMB, Romuald Schaber, said he would suspend his milk supplies immediately.

 

These views were supported by representatives from the French Organisation of Milk Producers, the German Dairy Farmers Association and the Austrian dairy farmer body IG-Milch.

 

Small producer organisation, the European Co-ordination Via Campesina, applauded the action and encouraged its members to join in with blockades of dairies, milk powder factories and storage centres "to prevent the strike being broken by selling excess stock".

 

Production has to be reduced by the percentage necessary to balance the market and increase prices for producers, said a statement.