EU farmers want fair price for milk

The EMB – a lobby group representing dairy farmers across the EU – said that
certified ‘Fair Milk’ (labelled with a special logo) is already on retail
shelves in Austria and would soon be making its way across Europe.

Strike action
Farmers’ groups last year took part
in a number of strikes in the bloc to outline what they said were concerns over
meeting rising production costs in their operations.

Following on from
the European Commision’s decision to raise milk production quotas by two per
cent last November, the EMB claims farmers have continued to suffer.

Also some of Europe’s leading processors have said that they too are
being put under immense cost pressure, which would have to be passed on through
the industry. Arla Foods, which operates across Europe from Scandinavia to the
UK, said that the economic downturn had forced it to tighten its budget,
reducing farmer payouts to 232.4 Danish øre (€0.31) per kg of milk as of
1 January.

A growing number of European dairy farmers are therefore
uniting in their desire to obtain milk prices favouring the producer and
consumers. Fair Milk should help in reducing the pressure for EU dairy
producers. The actual implementation and the costs involved (and who is paying
for that) was not disclosed by the EMB.