The milk strike started timidly in Europe
Eric de LaChesnais
11 / 09 / 2009 | Updated: 07: 33 | 24 Comments | Add to selection
Milk producers gathered in Paris on Thursday.
Milk producers gathered in Paris on Thursday. Photo credits: AFP
For the consumer, the impact of the movement should not be visible until Tuesday.
DAIRY EUROPE, which met yesterday on the Invalides lawn, called its members to an unlimited "milk strike", which will result in a halt in deliveries to dairies. The movement timidly started yesterday in several EU countries, notably in France.
"I call on all French and European producers to suspend their milk deliveries as early as this evening's milking," launched Pascal Massol, president of Apli (Association of independent milk producers), a competing organization of the FNSEA which is recruiting successfully disappointed with the agreement on milk prices negotiated last July. About four hundred breeders from six producing countries (France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Holland and Luxembourg), or 70% of European milk production, had made the trip to Paris, despite the corn silage that is currently beginning.
After more than a year of crisis, they continue to denounce the collapse of the price of milk and the deregulation of the market decided by Brussels with the scheduled disappearance of quotas. "After having surveyed the countryside this summer, we are ready to go on strike indefinitely," explained the leader of the Apli, member of the European union EMB (European Milk Board), in the presence of his counterparts from the Old Continent. "Personally, I will not deliver my milk," added EMB president Romual Schaber, head of the BDM union across the Rhine.
"We will throw it in the pit"
Concretely, farmers will continue to milk their cows to prevent them from getting sick, but they will not sell their milk. "We will donate it to charities, and, if necessary, we will throw it in the pit because today, with current prices, we have nothing more to lose!" "Said Daniel Condat, president of the OPL (Organization of milk producers), another French union member of the EMB.
The call to strike was heard by many peasants. "Of course, I will follow her! We are missing 20 euros per year to complete our budget, ”explains Sylvie Lamour, operator in Ploudaniel, in Finistère. But not all breeders will participate in the movement.
Suddenly, the dairies are not too worried. They have filled up with milk with additional collections and they think that the strike will be little followed. "This movement only represents 20% of French breeders," puts the Association of Processors of Milk into perspective. Indeed, many farmers should follow the position of the majority union, the FNSEA, which firmly rejected the call to strike. "It is an aberration to throw away the fruit of his work," said Jean-Michel Lemétayer, president of the FNSEA. Besides, will the other European countries follow the French? "We will make our decision next week in light of what is happening in France," said Werner Locher, breeder near Zurich and national secretary of the BIG-M, member of the EMB. On the shelves, it will take until next Tuesday to measure the real impact of the strike, but we do not take the path of the shortage of milk or yogurt.
Curb the news source