Photos from Belgium Dairy Protest! MUST SEE!
You have to see these images from the Belgium dairy protest this week! Photos from the Associated Press
Belgian farmers sprayed 3 million liters (790,000 gallons) of fresh milk onto their fields Wednesday, furious over the low milk prices they say are bankrupting farmers.
Milk farmers’ groups said world prices had sunk so much they are having to sell milk at half their production costs, leaving more and more farmers unable to pay their bills.
To highlight their desperation, about 300 tractors dragged milk containers through plowed fields in southern Belgium, dumping a day’s worth of milk production in that region.
“It is a scandal to dump this, but we have to realize what the situation is,” said Belgian farm leader Erwin Schoepges. “We need a farm revolt.”
The crisis has driven many EU farmers into a “milk strike,” with thousands refusing to deliver milk to the industrial dairy conglomerates that produce anything from skimmed milk to processed cheese.
Romuald Schaber, the president of the European Milk Board farmers’ group, said up to half the milk farmers in some areas were refusing to deliver their milk and predicted the first shortages could hit some supermarkets as early as next week.
“We are looking at a real catastrophe. Nobody can produce milk at these prices,” he said.
To raise milk prices from the current 18 to 24 euro cents ($.26 to $.35) a kilo to the 40 cents ($.58) they say it required to cover costs, the farmers are demanding tougher EU production quotas. More government support is essential to stave off bankruptcies, they claim.
But the Europe-wide protests have also suffered from a lack of unity among farmers, with many either objecting to the spilling of milk or the strike itself.
The 27-nation EU already pays for extra help to farmers in addition to the euro55 billion ($80 billion) it pays annually for support payments, market regulation, storage aid, rural development and other projects.
Since the recovery from World War II, farming in Europe has always been exempt from free market forces as governments sought to end hunger and rationing by paying farmers to increase food output.
By the 1990s, Europe’s farms were paid to produce too much and the scandal of wasteful EU butter mountains and wine lakes prompted talks on reforming the industry to phase out state support. Quotas for milk production are scheduled to end in 2015.
Agriculture is still one of the most shielded economic sectors in the EU, but it has not been able to protect farmers from the global financial crisis that caused demand to crash.
“If we go on for another three months like this, 40 percent of French milk producers will be condemned to bankruptcy,” said Pascal Massol, a Breton farmer who leads the French protests.
EU farmers group Copa said without quick EU action, farmers would lose euro10 billion ($14 billion).
The European Union opposes tougher quotas, seeking instead to abolish the practice to let market forces have a stronger influence on production.
“I understand their emotions,” EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said of Wednesday’s milk protest. “It is a human reaction.”
Source: NPR
September 18th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
As milk producers ourselves, we are very upset because of actions like this.
How could you spill this huge amount of milk in the fields while people all over the world are starving to death as for example in Africa, Asia, South America and these days closer to us in Guatemala ???
Instead of this measure, you shold go to the local TV, or to the RED CROSS or inform the WHO about your huge milk quantities and put them to their disposal. There you will create the necessary publicity to claim for a right price and the worlds eyes would have learned about your problem.
Spilling nurtureous milk these days is a terrible mistake and a sinn.
Having lived in Europe myself for many years, I know that the problem of the milk producers there is the subvention they have been claiming from their governments for many years. This is a complete insane practice, every economist knows it, so….let the offer and demand set the price. This is the only acceptable policy for every agricultural activity.
Besides this, make some cheese, some curd, whatever is obviously a better policy than spillin the milk into a field. This is weird.
September 19th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I think this is awesome, finally a group that can get close to unitity. This is great.
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:55 pm
This is just another example of how almost all farmers have lost control of how much money they actually receive for their products. Retailers have been allowed, over time to take more and more and governments turn a blind out of stupidity or are just paid off by lobbiest. With very few buyers left in the world its obvious controls are necessary to redistribute the wealth regardless of how wonderful you think free capitalism may be. Wake up world!
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
I agree with Melba but we don’t have time to feed the world when we are about to starve ourselves. I think something should be done by the dairymen and if this starts something to prove our point then so be it. Good Job! I wish we could of done something in the United States to help.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:45 am
The European government promised a “soft-landing” when they announced the end of the quota system. This picture shows how this looks like! It is a wrong decision to get rid of the supply management system.
Modern family farms can NOT survive without some sort of supply management in this world, period. Governments,retailers,stores,consumers don’t seem to care…yet.
Therefore: although this action seems to be wrong, it is the only way to get the attention for a global issue.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Folks, what you see here is the end result of failed government intervention. Open markets, supply and demand will work if left alone. It is very painful to see hard working farmers be led down a path of destruction by promises of better financial health by governments that in the end really can’t fix supply and demand. It is a world marketplace, national industries like dairy have to be willing to be a part of the world market or be left behind. Only those producers that are the most efficicient and competitive no matter what country in the end will survive, consumers demand this out of their products. As General Patton once said “it is not the goal of our farmers to slaughter their cows for their country, it is the to have the other guy’s cows slaughtered for their country.” Adopt economic policies that allow demand to drive production, then produers can decide if they have the business acumen and stomach to be part of the industry or not. If not then government could help train them to find a new career.
November 13th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Woah, 3 Million litres! Surely there could have been a better way to give away that milk! Like sending it to impoverished countries. It’s outragous.