As we feared, the extraordinary meeting of the EU Agricultural Council on the dairy crisis ended without significant results.European farmers, what ever they produce, be it milk or other products, must remain mobilized. Their very existence is at stake. European consumers must remain in solidarity with them: their food system is at stake.
Dairy crisis :The EU is wrong to bet on producers giving up! As we feared, the extraordinary meeting of the EU Agricultural Council on the dairy crisis ended without significant results. While the European milk producers expressed their anger and their determination in front of the Council building in Brussels, it seems that the Ministers decided to let the situation rot. They still do not want to manage supply.The dairy crisis won't be solved by an Intergovernmental group chaired by the director of the DG Agri who will make their proposals in June 2010. Milk producers can't wait any longer.European Coordination Via Campesina renews its call of September 16th for a European Summit of the Heads of State to modify the mandate given last June to the European Commission. There will be no solution to the dairy crisis as long as the decisions of the milk reform of 2003 and Health Check of November 2008 are not modified. To bet on the resignation of the producers, to choose restructuring and contractual agreements as solutions which will leave only increasingly industrialized dairy farms in contradiction with the climatic, environmental, and employment challenges of today is utter folly. To think that the farmers should disappear like the miners or the steel workers, to think that it is up to industry and low cost countries to feed our population is a grave error. Is the global crisis linked to the neoliberal policies of deregulation in the last decades not a strong enough message for our governments?Contrary to the COPA and the assertions of the Commissioner, we do not demand new subsidies, but a fair milk price. European farmers, what ever they produce, be it milk or other products, must remain mobilized. Their very existence is at stake. European consumers must remain in solidarity with them: their food system is at stake. European Coordination Via Campesina calls on all elected people, from mayors to European deputies, to intervene to defend the interests of their citizens and their territories. Contacts : Lidia Senra (PT/ES/FR) + 34 609 84 5861- René Louail (FR) + 33 6 7284 8792Gérard Choplin , ECVC office in Brussels (FR/EN/DE) +32473257378
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