End of milk quotas 'will hurt small farmers'
- 9 years ago
Farmers driving tractors pulled into Brussels on Tuesday hours before the ending of milk quotas across the EU.
Bruxelles: les éleveurs laitiers allument un feu devant le Parlement européen. #SCHOPGES #MILKQUOTA #AGRICULTURE http://t.co/lIloffATb2— Xavier Delwarte (@Altertierra) March 31, 2015
Small farm owners warn that the liberalisation of the milk market from midnight on April 1 will lead to a massive ramp up of production and a drop in prices which would force many of them out of business.
Maria Heubuch, an MEP for the Greens told euronews that if small farmers disappeared “Europe could see more factory farms with 1000, 2000 or even 5000 cows, merely providing raw materials for the industry.”
German farmer Karl-Otto Vollrath, who joined Tuesday’s protest, predicted: “There’ll be no winners whether you have 50 or 500 cows.”
Quotas began in 1984 as a response to the so-called EU milk lakes and butter mountains caused by overproduction and many warn of a repeat of those day
Bruxelles: les éleveurs laitiers allument un feu devant le Parlement européen. #SCHOPGES #MILKQUOTA #AGRICULTURE http://t.co/lIloffATb2— Xavier Delwarte (@Altertierra) March 31, 2015
Small farm owners warn that the liberalisation of the milk market from midnight on April 1 will lead to a massive ramp up of production and a drop in prices which would force many of them out of business.
Maria Heubuch, an MEP for the Greens told euronews that if small farmers disappeared “Europe could see more factory farms with 1000, 2000 or even 5000 cows, merely providing raw materials for the industry.”
German farmer Karl-Otto Vollrath, who joined Tuesday’s protest, predicted: “There’ll be no winners whether you have 50 or 500 cows.”
Quotas began in 1984 as a response to the so-called EU milk lakes and butter mountains caused by overproduction and many warn of a repeat of those day