The EU ministers of Agriculture are discussing about the crisis of the sector in Brussels.

The meeting was preceded by a series of mobilizations in several key points in Europe and even in Brussels.

The European Milk Board estimated that in France, nearly 40 per cent of the producers joined the strike. On Friday 11, members of the Board mobilized, flooding the streets of the main square of the city of Charleroi, in the south of Belgium, as part of the protests which have also included road blocks or preventing the collection of milk by the trucks.

As a result of this, the European Coordination of Via Campesina has expressed its full support to the protest measures adopted by the milk producers’ organizations.

Some of these protest measures are blocking dairy industries, powdered milk factories and the centers of powdered milk storage to avoid the strike from breaking.

La Via Campesina is also calling the consumers to support the demands of the farmers of getting a price of milk (from 40 cents of euro) “that recognizes the value of their work and puts a limit on the margins between production and consumption”.

Three days after the meeting of ministers, farmers all around Europe will also go to Brussels to assess the outcomes of the meeting in terms of future policies. If they find them unsatisfactory, the conflict will extend to the whole bloc.

La Via Campesina is also making a call to “the tax payers to reject that the EU’s budget is used to export dairy products under the production costs (dumping), as this ruining the local milk production for the countries of the South”.

The organization believes the bad milk policy is responsible for the situation of over production and it becomes urgent to change it drastically.

The solutions are to reduce the production with a percentage that enables to balance the market and the highest prices on production, in proportion to the volume of production of exploitation, without reduction by small producers, said La Via Campesina.

The organization is also demanding to launch “a European debate on the milk production methods.

The UN Conference on Climate in Copenhagen is few months away and the EU can no longer defend an intensive mode of production based on soy imports from Latin America, turned into a butter and powdered milk surplus.

This dependence not only causes the EU to be vulnerable, but it also causes environmental and social damages both in Latin America and Europe”.

Photo: grastronomiaycia.com