German consumers have accepted the sudden price rise of some 5% for drinking milk and butter resulting from the ten-day withholding of milk by dairy farmers in Germany, according to the country’s Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer.

The protest at low retail prices forcing down milk producers’ incomes involved an estimate third of Germany’s 102,000 dairy farmers and resulted in some 220,000 tonnes of milk being poured down the drains.
Dairy output penalties included a claimed 30% reduction in skimmed milk powder by the end of the strike and 20% reduction in cheese output. Seehofer says that surveys indicate public sympathies are with the grass root milk producers but publicly warned the milk processors to pass all extra income earned from the new retail price rises straight back to the farmers. The German dairy sector has pledged to try and avoid similar confrontations in the future although many farmers are still not happy with the small gains achieved through the strike.