EMB demonstration: European farmers call on the European Commission to anchor voluntary production cuts in the CAP

Stripped to the bone, standing in front of the European Commission in the middle of mountains of milk powder – the dairy cow that provides milk to Europe's citizens. Around her fly the flags of many European countries, held by farmers who collect this milk on a daily basis.  They as well have been shaken by the constantly recurring dairy crises. In spite of the current high butter prices, the dairy sector remains in its chronic poor state because the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) lacks a mechanism to prevent crises.

The frequency of crises in the sector is alarming and has not only driven many farms out of business in recent years, but has also severely destabilised the farms that continue their activity. As Sieta van Keimpema, vice president of the European Milk Board (EMB), reports, forced cuts are usually made at the cost of animal welfare – read: lifespan – as well as the farmer and his family's living and working conditions. "It is an impossible situation for the last link in the milk production chain, which has received no consideration in policy to date. Major distortions in competition on the dairy market have, for many years, led to prices that are significantly lower than inherent production costs," says van Keimpema.

A recently published study, which calculates milk production costs in five key milk-producing countries, documents this deficit. Even so-called "better years" were unable to compensate for these losses: since 2012, the annual average deficit in France has been 21 percent, in the Netherlands 23 percent, in Germany 22 percent, in Belgium 24 percent, and in Denmark 17 percent.

Please find here more information on this international study carried out by BAL (Office for Agriculture and Agricultural Sociology)

To be very clear: farmers are not asking for subsidies to produce milk. What they need is a mechanism that would finally safeguard the sector from further hard-hitting crises. A mechanism that is flexible enough to allow growth in the sector and could also cater to increasing demand.  This mechanism must be legally anchored in the CAP. As the past has clearly shown, the absence of such provisions means that reactions come too late and even then, often lead to nowhere.

The specific proposal is to complement the Milk Market Observatory with a permanent mechanism that could temporarily limit or reduce production in the event of crises.

Please find here more information about the crisis mechanism – the Market Responsibility Programme

Exploitation in the dairy sector can be stopped and the chronic difficult, painful times can be curtailed if a legal provision in the CAP were to sustainably regulate voluntary production cuts in the future.

EMB press release of 26 October 2017

From 21 to 25 October 2017, we went to Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), where we participated in the three-day conference “72 Hours of Local Milk”. One of the projects that were looked at was the Fairefaso project, which guarantees a fair milk price to Burkinabe milk producers and serves as a quality label.

This project was set up around a year ago with the support of the Belgian organisations MIG, Faircoop and Oxfam, and has already been successfully rolled out in three micro-dairies.

On day one of our visit we attended the General Assembly of the UMPLB (Burkina Faso Micro-Dairy Association). This association brings together 48 micro-dairies, each of which are supplied by 40 to 50 producers. The processing volume is somewhere between 100 and 300 litres a day per dairy.

On day two, the focus was on exchanges between individual countries. In addition to Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Nigeria and Belgium were also represented. Political demands were addressed to national governments, ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) and the EU. The main topic was the mass exports of skimmed milk powder enriched with vegetable fat (palm oil) being dumped on the region of West Africa.

Another topic was the introduction of Fair Milk in other countries. Senegal ("Fairesen") and Mauritania ("Fairemau") will soon be rolling out their Fair Milk programmes. This was the first time that such an international exchange had taken place amongst dairy farmers.

On day three, the conclusions and demands were set down in a resolution signed by all participating states, which was presented and explained to the public, political representatives and the media.

On day four, the day of our departure, we had the opportunity to visit a dairy farm in Koudougou, 60 km away. It currently processes 120 litres per day of pasteurised yoghurt, milk and butter.

To conclude, I am happy to say that this was a truly fascinating and memorable experience for me. We got to know people from a different culture and a completely different environment. We were motivated even more by the efforts and the commitment shown by local leaders. It will certainly be exciting to see how this movement continues to develop. The future belongs to milk producers, if we only take our destiny into our own hands.

Daniel Hick, Milk Producer Interest Group (MIG), Belgium

On 9 October, the demonstration involving some 500 dairy farmers and 200 tractors was the conclusion to the German Dairy Farmers’ Association BDM nationwide "Milk Powder Tour”. From late August, German dairy farmers had carried out various campaigns to illustrate the consequences of the inadequate safety net for the EU milk market.

Besides considerable financial losses for the dairy farmers, huge milk powder mountains have built up, hindering the urgently needed faster and more manifest recovery in farm-gate prices for milk.

The dairy farmers illustrated this insane policy again in Munich with a powder-spraying campaign, in which several sacks of milk powder were blasted by a blower high into the air outside the State Chancellery. The dairy farmers’ key demands were: during the crisis curb milk surpluses instead of storing excess volumes, and ensure the milk powder mountain is demolished in a way that does not damage the market!

Other representatives of development aid organisations stressed in their speeches that exporting cheap milk powder to third world nations threatened the livelihood of smallholders there, and was also hugely detrimental to farmers here.

BDM President Romuald Schaber was insistent: “The EU safety net must now be extended whilst the market is still recovering. If the market slides again, there will be new losses, posing a massive threat to the already hard hit dairy farms. Effective crisis instruments that can help the market recover must then be in place, ready to implement.”

Key Issues Paper – BDM’s Expectations for the New Federal Government

As part of the ongoing exploratory talks on the formation of a new federal government, we have informed the members of the exploratory committee of the commitments that must be met vis-à-vis dairy farmers, and which should be laid down in the new coalition agreement. The focus is on the design of the common market organisation (CMO) and thereby on the extension of the EU dairy market safety net to temporary multidisciplinary measures in the event of market crisis. The need to improve the market position of dairy farmers and further development of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy must also be addressed. Special consideration should also be given to the specific contributions of livestock farmers and, in particular, dairy farmers, to maintaining the vitality of rural areas.

Johannes Fritz, BDM