On 13 January, Fairkoperativ, a cooperative of dairy farmers in Luxembourg, hosted Minister of Agriculture Martine Hansen and the new European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen, for a screening of the documentary “Trainée de poudre”.

Just before the Christmas holidays – on 17 December 2024 – a very interesting article was published in the “Schweizer Bauer” trade magazine called “Butter imports: here’s how much money was made”. It looked at the millions earned by the Swiss Confederation in customs duties from the thousands of tonnes of butter imported to Switzerland between 2020 and 2023.

Here is a short summary of the key points of this article (available in German): MP Martin Hübscher (Swiss People’s Party/canton Zurich) asked the Federal Council how much was brought in as customs revenue from butter imports. Answer: over four years – from 2020 to 2023 – Switzerland imported 22,790 tonnes of butter, which led to the Confederation receiving CHF 5.6 million in customs duties. It is important to state that Uniterre was highly critical of these imports. Stefan Kohler, Director of Swiss dairy sector organisation IP Lait, himself admitted in an article published in AgriHebdo on 12 July 2024 (available in French) that, in retrospect, the large amounts imported in 2023 were not necessary.

Since 2024, the situation has reversed, and Switzerland is once again facing a butter surplus. To deal with this excess, it was decided at an IP Lait meeting in November 2024 to ease the market. These are the measures that will be implemented (see IP Lait report, December 2024):

• 1500 tonnes of butter will be exported and have been attributed to the following butter exporters: Emmi, Cremo, Züger Frischkäse and Imlig.
• 1500 tonnes of cream will be exported as part of a tariff quota to the EU and have been attributed to mooh société coopérative and Arnold Produkte AG.
• First-tier buyers of milk or industrial milk (including industrial milk transformed into cheese) will deduct 1.00 centime per kg of milk (excluding organic milk) purchased between March and May 2025 (= 3 x 1.00 centime), which will be paid to IP Lait, adding to the money that processors already receive from the compensation funds under the “Chocolate Law”. To this aim, a letter was sent to the 50 largest first-tier milk buyers (annual volume: 2,040,000 tonnes of industrial milk), asking for their approval to set up this additional funding. Clearly, producers are being asked to contribute from their pocket to this export of surplus butter and cream.

As a reminder, the “Chocolate Law”, i.e. financial contributions for agricultural products intended for export, was abolished following a WTO (World Trade Organisation) ban on export subsidies. A substitute mechanism for the “Chocolate Law” came into force on 1 January 2019. In short: producers have since received a supplement of 5 centimes directly from the Confederation – the subsidy for exported milk. Processors, on their end, deduct this amount from their payments to milk producers and split it between two intervention funds. These funds amount to a total CHF 170 million per year (see 2024 Agricultural Report).

This begs the question: why must producers contribute additional money to these funds to facilitate the export of these butter and cream surpluses, when the Confederation earned CHF 5.6 million in customs duties from butter imports? Why not use the Confederation’s money via the same “Chocolate Law” substitute system, instead of continuing to squeeze milk producers, who, let’s not forget, earn an average 15 francs per hour (Remuneration in dairy farming, PSL,13/12/24 – available in French), are paid a farm-gate price that is well below their production costs and are already severely burdened by different fees and charges?

Berthe Darras, head of the dairy committee at Uniterre

Alongside several Walloon and European agricultural organisations, MIG is taking a firm stance against the free-trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries. This agreement poses a direct threat to agriculture, the environment and food security in Europe by nullifying all sustainability efforts.

Representatives of several farmers’ associations have criticised Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz in an open letter. They accuse him of stepping on the brakes in the negotiations currently taking place in Brussels to introduce a European contractual obligation for the milk sector. Together they called upon Scholz to take a clear, resolute stance at the EU Agriculture Council at the end of January in order to improve the negotiating position of dairy farmers on the European level.