Without a rise in the price of drinking milk at the start of the school year, the dairy industry does not refrain from moving “to a trade unionism of destruction”, warned the union of dairy farmers who met the Minister of Agriculture Friday afternoon.
“The minister told us he understood our demands,” commented Thierry Roquefeuil, President of the National Federation of Milk Producers at the end of his meeting with Marc Fesneau. Since the start of the war in ukraineat the end of February, the sector noted a stagnation in the price of milk paid to producers in France while they are on the rise in the rest of the European countries. “Milk producers should have been paid 445.5 euros per ton of milk in June, whereas in France the average was more around 425 euros,” explained the president of the FNPL.
First working meeting for the @FNPLait with the minister @MFesneau .The law “for a better income for producers” or Egalim 2 must apply! Shared observation . for #CeuxQuiFontLeLait the heat wave and the challenge of feeding our animals! pic.twitter.com/RFdbxlafjQ
— Roquefeuil (@ThRoquefeuil) July 22, 2022
The union is annoyed to see that the increases in the cost of production for dairy farmers are not passed on in France “while we have the same charges as our German neighbors”, said Yohann Barbe, treasurer of the FNPL during a press conference Thursday. Faced with the difficulty faced by manufacturers in getting price increases through to distributors, “we do not forbid national action”, declared Daniel Perrin, general secretary of the FNPL, “and if we have to arrive at a trade unionism of destruction, we will not forbid it”.
“In hard-discount, we would be at 78 cents per carton of semi-skimmed milk against 99 cents in Germany”, cites as an example Ghislain de Viron, first vice-president of the union, who wishes to see the liter of bottled milk approach one. euro on the shelves at the start of the school year. Milk producers are giving distributors until September 1 “to bring themselves up to European level” so that “in October the money will reach farmers,” said Thierry Roquefeuil.
It is by “letting it go” that there will be a risk of shortage, even if “it will not happen tomorrow” since it is a long-term sector, explained Yohann Barbe, treasurer of the FNPL . “A calf takes three years to produce and if we lose dairy cows, then it takes three years to recover them,” he added. Global warming and sharp increases in production costs are threatening the sustainability of dairy herds in France at a time when the sector is facing a problem of generational renewal.
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