IG-Milch sets out seven points on World Milk day in Austria

IG-Milch, an independent organisation of Austrian farmers, advocating fair prices and fair production conditions for farmers, used World Milk Day 2020 to state that the dairy sector needs to be converted in order to bring the farmers a better life in contact with nature.

“With our pioneering initiative IG-Milch, we have learned to know the life of the farmers on the farms themselves, the farmers’ representatives, the chamber work, the food producers, the Raiffeisen conglomerate and all other interest groups up close and from the inside in recent decades. This enables us to have a profound look behind the scenes and even more so an experience-based and professionally experienced look at the future of agriculture and especially the dairy industry in Austria,” claimed the managing director of IG-Milch, Ewald Grünzweil.

With the ‘Basic and Directional Manifesto of IG-Milch’ their farmers networks around the ‘fair milk’ concept are in seven starting points calling on political decision-makers to define these starting points as new framework condition. According to IG-Milch this makes climate and environmentally friendly farming possible for the benefit of all concerned and for the benefit of our common livelihood on Mother Earth.

IG-Milch wants politicians to implement seven so-called starting points. The first starting point for a new dairy industry is the secured raw milk price from the farm in the conventional range of €0.50 per kilo of milk and in the organic range of €0.70 for small-scale agriculture up to 30 dairy cows.

The second starting point is the reduction of concentrated feed to 20% of the current use in Austria and in the EU. That is about 200 kg per year and cow.

The third starting point is a dramatic reduction in sprays and artificial fertilizers in the entire agricultural sector and the expansion of permanent meadows for sustainable humus formation.

The fourth starting point is the regionalisation of all agricultural production and processing processes in contrast to the current and common centralisation.

The fifth starting point is to improve and promote the position of direct marketers.

The sixth starting point is to use ‘Calculate correctly’ in at least 50 companies from autumn 2020. ‘Calculate correctly’ is an idea that optimisation prices are not the basis and direction of all calculations, but care of nature is.

The seventh starting point is the uncomplicated enabling and promotion of new forms of handover and cooperation between agricultural holdings.

Related content

Leave a reply

Dairy Industries International