Heads of the EU Foreign Ministries will gather at an emergency meeting in September, due to the crisis in agriculture. Today Milk Rivers have literally appeared on the streets of French cities. That’s how local farmers are expressing their indignation at the drastic fall in purchase prices, NTV reports. The protests were caused by a decision of the authorities to allow products from other EU countries to enter the French market. According to the Minister of Agriculture of France, Moscow’s embargo on imports of agricultural products from the countries which launched sanctions against Russia have led to a domino effect. As a result of the Russian embargo some EU countries had to find new outlet markets in Europe. Foreign providers began to sell their goods at lower prices. That’s why one in ten French farmers is on the edge of bankruptcy. It also threatens producers of pork and milk in Belgium.
Daniel Coulonval, Chairman of the Walloon Federation of Agriculture, says that problems that exist in agriculture in Belgium affect all of the EU countries: “Our French colleagues were the first ones who started to protest, particularly in April, against those prices which are practiced currently. Their actions were covered by the media, and we responded in the same way to a situation that also has a very large impact on our agricultural producers. That is why, of course, today, these actions affect Germany, and Spain, and other European countries,” Coulonval says.
Erwin Schöpges, Board member of the European Organization of Dairy Producers, the chairman of the Belgian Association of Dairy Producers MIG, one of the main organizers of the recent protests in Belgium, says: “Now we do not recognize this liberalization of markets, we are starting to feel this policy, which is currently underway in Europe, on ourselves. That is why we organized this strike, milk, let's say, we poured three million liters of milk in a field due to the drop in prices. Today the situation of 2009 is repeating, when we lose 10-12 cents on the value of the price of milk.”
Many agricultural workers are in a very difficult situation everywhere in Europe, they find it difficult to pay the bills, and even the services of veterinarians to care for the cows, and there is a certain depression that prevails at present in families, because women who pay the bills for the content of farms are no longer able to do that, Erwin Schöpges states. According to him, in other words, “it's not only we who have these problems – Croatia, Spain. We decided not to support the agricultural policy taking place in Europe any more and not to accept a policy that only benefits multinational companies, because we see that major financiers and banks have become owners of agricultural land. That is why we organized this movement and why we chose the way of protest and will continue these actions.”
