EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Several thousand dairy farmers from across the continent on Monday drove their tractors to the heart of the European quarter in Brussels, where EU agriculture ministers were meeting informally to discuss a response to the crisis in the milk sector. While the Schuman roundabout, home to the Council of Ministers building, was filled with black, acrid smoke from a pair of bonfires of straw-filled rubber tyres, agricultural vehicles draped in angry banners and flat-bed trucks bearing German black-red-and-gold fibre-glass cows blocked the streets. The younger farmers hurled bottles, bags of grain and potted plants at a phalanx of riot police with shields and gas-masks at hand, while razor-wire barricades protected the council building and water cannon lay ready in case the trouble escalated. Following a peak in milk prices in mid-2008, world markets have seen a sharp decline. A recent drop of some 40 percent has pushed milk prices to 1992 levels. The development will have robbed European dairy producers of some €14 billion by the end of the year, according to Copa and Cogeca, the European farmers' associations.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Several thousand dairy farmers from across the continent on Monday drove their tractors to the heart of the European quarter in Brussels, where EU agriculture ministers were meeting informally to discuss a response to the crisis in the milk sector.
While the Schuman roundabout, home to the Council of Ministers building, was filled with black, acrid smoke from a pair of bonfires of straw-filled rubber tyres, agricultural vehicles draped in angry banners and flat-bed trucks bearing German black-red-and-gold fibre-glass cows blocked the streets.
The younger farmers hurled bottles, bags of grain and potted plants at a phalanx of riot police with shields and gas-masks at hand, while razor-wire barricades protected the council building and water cannon lay ready in case the trouble escalated.
Following a peak in milk prices in mid-2008, world markets have seen a sharp decline. A recent drop of some 40 percent has pushed milk prices to 1992 levels. The development will have robbed European dairy producers of some €14 billion by the end of the year, according to Copa and Cogeca, the European farmers' associations.
Dairy farmers across Europe have been protesting against falling milk prices for months. The small-scale Alpine farms of Switzerland are among the producers hard hit by the dairy crisis. At a recent protest in the Swiss town of Fribourg, hundreds of tractors stopped traffic and angry dairy farmers swung cow bells and waved banners saying "ca suffit" (that's enough). It is one of just many demonstrations which have taken place over the past months throughout Switzerland. The farmers are angry about tumbling milk prices, caused by a combination of high production, decreased demand and a phasing out of milk quotas. Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Dairy farmers are angryAccording to Valentina Hemmeler from the farmer's union Uniterre, Swiss dairy farmers, once regarded as the backbone of the country's agriculture, can't even afford to feed their cattle."We are here to demand a fair price for milk," she said, adding that the farmers were being paid approximately half of what they needed to cover the costs of production.
At a recent protest in the Swiss town of Fribourg, hundreds of tractors stopped traffic and angry dairy farmers swung cow bells and waved banners saying "ca suffit" (that's enough). It is one of just many demonstrations which have taken place over the past months throughout Switzerland. The farmers are angry about tumbling milk prices, caused by a combination of high production, decreased demand and a phasing out of milk quotas. Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Dairy farmers are angryAccording to Valentina Hemmeler from the farmer's union Uniterre, Swiss dairy farmers, once regarded as the backbone of the country's agriculture, can't even afford to feed their cattle."We are here to demand a fair price for milk," she said, adding that the farmers were being paid approximately half of what they needed to cover the costs of production.
As 1 billion people in the world go hungry, European farmers filled up their manure tankers with milk and dumped it on their fields to protest the low price of milk. The milk protest illustrates a much bigger problem with food prices in the globalised world.Farmers all over continental Europe joined in milk strikes over the past month because, they say, they are forced to sell their dairy at half the price it costs to make it and they are being put out of business. The protests have forced an emergency meeting of European agriculture ministers on Monday in which France and Germany are asking the others to support raising milk subsidies. While there is sympathy for the farmer's position, many people are offended by the waste of perfectly good milk. "It is a sad picture at a time when a billion people are hungry," Dutch Labour member of parliament Harm Evert Waalkens says. But the farmers say they are not to blame for this. "Hunger is a political problem," Sieta van Keimpema, the leader of the protesting Dutch Dairymen Board, said at a recent 'milk strike' rally in The Hague. "Policians have never lifted a finger to solve the problem of hunger," the dairy farmer said. She dismissed the suggestion that the millions of litres of milk should be made in to butter and be shipped to Africa instead of dumped. "That would only disrupt the local markets and make their farmers obsolete."
Farmers all over continental Europe joined in milk strikes over the past month because, they say, they are forced to sell their dairy at half the price it costs to make it and they are being put out of business. The protests have forced an emergency meeting of European agriculture ministers on Monday in which France and Germany are asking the others to support raising milk subsidies.
While there is sympathy for the farmer's position, many people are offended by the waste of perfectly good milk. "It is a sad picture at a time when a billion people are hungry," Dutch Labour member of parliament Harm Evert Waalkens says.
But the farmers say they are not to blame for this. "Hunger is a political problem," Sieta van Keimpema, the leader of the protesting Dutch Dairymen Board, said at a recent 'milk strike' rally in The Hague. "Policians have never lifted a finger to solve the problem of hunger," the dairy farmer said. She dismissed the suggestion that the millions of litres of milk should be made in to butter and be shipped to Africa instead of dumped. "That would only disrupt the local markets and make their farmers obsolete."
