Bring back quotas, says IG Milch
To combat low milk prices, the Austrian protest organization IG-Milch is calling for the reintroduction of a quantity control. IG Milch says the EU-wide liberalization of the dairy market must be reversed.
In Austria and Europe it must come to a “reverse thrust” in the dairy policy, according to IG-Milch chairman Ewald Grünzweil, after the latest meeting.
Since the EU dairy market was liberalized in April 2015, the farmers can produce as much milk as they wish. The result is overproduction and a depressed milk price.
“We produce quantities that nobody needs,” Grünzweil says.
A quota system should not be only in Austria internally, but could well be European, he says. The market observatory should have a right to intervention, he states.
The organisation calls for an unchanged minimum price of €0.50 per litre for conventional milk and €0.60 for organic milk, so that farmers can cover production costs. Currently, a litre of conventional milk costs about €0.31 in Austria, while a litre of organic milk costs €0.44.
“Based on these prices, more and more dairy farmers will have to seek alternative sources of income,” Grünzweil says.
