Dairy farmers protest in Brussels over low price of milk

About a hundred farmers protested in front of European Union institutions, calling for a law on the price of dairy products

Transcript

00:00 Dairy farmers have gathered in Brussels to call for a fair income.

00:05 They first and foremost want an EU-wide regulation to prohibit selling milk at prices that do not cover the production costs.

00:13 As Karsten Poulsen from the European Milk Board explains, a litre of milk is sold on average at around 40 cents in Europe,

00:20 while production costs around 50 cents.

00:26 We have been looking at the Spanish law that they have done in the UTP,

00:31 where it's forbidden to sell products below cost of production in all parts of the chain.

00:38 So from farmer to, if it's milk we're talking about, from farmer or milk producer to the dairy, from dairy to retail.

00:46 In some countries like Italy, the gap between production costs and selling price is even bigger.

00:54 The average need of an Italian company is around 60-65 cents per litre.

01:03 At the moment, on average, Italian producers make 50 cents.

01:07 We still have a 15-cent scissor.

01:10 Dairy farmers also ask to be more involved in the drafting of the Green Deals measures for the agricultural sector.

01:20 The demonstration started in Brussels to reach the Berlin Palace, the headquarters of the European Commission.

01:27 The dairy farmers have already had talks with the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski,

01:33 and now they want to put pressure on the institutions in view of the vote of the European elections.

01:39 [SWOOSH]