European farmers protest to demand help on milk prices
Posted: 26 May 2009 0449 hrs

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BRUSSELS: Furious farmers blockaded roads and brought some dairies to a halt in Europe-wide protests on Monday to demand help for slumping wholesale milk prices, as EU officials announced some concessions.

In Brussels, farm tractors blocked major roads in the city's European quarter, where police said about 900 demonstrators rallied to make their voices heard by European Union agriculture ministers meeting to discuss the crisis.

Riot police were seen trying to hold back the protestors, who converged on the Belgian capital from 10 countries, but the farmers broke through their barricade, despite receiving truncheon blows from some officers.

The protestors, mainly from Belgium, France and Germany, want the EU milk quotas to be lowered so prices can move up again. They were allowed to stay on the streets after talks between the police and rally organisers.

"A lot of producers can't hold out with milk prices the way they are. Morale is very low," said Erwin Schoepges, a Belgian representative of the European Milk Board, which represents the profession at EU level.

Later Monday, the European Commission announced that ministers had agreed to pay out planned subsidies earlier than expected, but they did not move on the EU's quota system for managing the sector.

In France, with around 150,000 dairy farmers and more than 3000 dairies, some 12,000 dairy farmers were involved in an action to halt work at around 81 sites, according to the FNSEA union.

"Nothing is going in and nothing's coming out," declared Joel Limouzin, a farmers' leader in the Loire Valley.

Farmers accuse retailers of exploitation, complaining that the price they are paid for milk by wholesalers has fallen dramatically in recent months, while the cost to consumers in supermarkets has remained stable.

French farmers are paid 21 euro cents per litre of milk, 30 percent less than in April 2008, according to the national federation of dairy producers FNPL. Consumers pay around a euro per litre.

The French government has appointed mediators to attempt to broker a deal between farmers and milk buyers, but unions have vowed to step up protests across the continent.

The Brussels talks Monday ended with EU agriculture ministers agreeing to allow farmers, starting with the dairy sector, to benefit earlier from planned European subsidies.

This was because of "the serious difficulties in finance and liquidity that they face, due to the lower prices and higher costs," said EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

Farmers could receive up to 70 percent of their subsidies for 2010 starting on October 16, Fischer Boel said according to a text of the meeting.

Producers could also receive a subsidy for stocking butter so they can refrigerate and preserve it until market prices rise.

On the other hand, Fischer Boel refused to open up the already determined quotas on milk production in the EU, saying the quotas were not the cause of the problem.

Quotas were introduced in 1984 to tackle the then notorious butter mountains and milk lakes created by over-production and to support prices.

But in November, the EU agreed to lift them by one percent per year, then scrap them altogether in 2014-2015.

"The quotas are not the reason for the low prices because we are not producing more than we did before," Fischer Boel said earlier Monday. "It's simply a question of lower demand."

"What farmers need to do is to produce less."

In Berlin, where farmers entered the capital on tractors, just four months before a national election, the left-right ruling coalition said it would cut taxes on diesel fuel used on farms, a finance ministry spokesman said.

The tax relief meets a key demand of the German Farmers' Association, which called the demonstration, and claimed it brought 6,000 farmers and 200 tractors out on the streets. - AFP/de