Farmers’ sit-in: the price of milk has fallen by 20% since January
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They organized a sit-in at the Brescia tollbooth of the A4 on Wednesday 12 July. And if that’s not enough, within a week they promise to take the tractors to the center of Milan. The Lombard farmers are protesting: against the price of milk which has decreased by 20% since January, on the one hand. On the other hand, against the issue of fines for milk quotas which has never been resolved.
Three sentences of the EU Court of Justice say that in Italy the calculation of fines needs to be redone, since they should be divided over a much higher number of producers and, therefore, for each one they would be lower. For this reason, over the last year, the farmers wanted to meet twice with the Undersecretary of Agriculture, Luigi D’Eramo, with whom a timetable for the recalculation had been agreed. «It was March 3 – says Roberto Cavaliere, national manager of the dairy sector of Copagri and president of Copagri Lombardia, which alone assists 40% of all the farmers involved – since then not only have the foreclosures continued, but the last week an amendment was even presented to the Senate that took us by surprise, because in fact it contradicts what we had agreed up to now”. If it is approved, only farmers in possession of a definitive sentence from the Council of State will be entitled to the recalculation of the fines, all the others will not. Which, as well as being illegitimate, would only affect a small minority of the farmers involved.
«Overall, for the overrun of milk quotas over the years, Italy has to pay around 4.5 billion euros – explains Cavaliere – but a good part of this needs to be recalculated. The EU judgments say so. Despite this, the request for payments to farmers has never been suspended. According to Agea data, 5,000 executions had already been carried out as of March 3». They mean more or less half a billion euros in foreclosures: “There are companies that can’t make it, that risk bankruptcy – says Cavaliere – recently we also received the news of two suicides, one in Vicenza and one in Brescia”. Farmers who hanged themselves because they didn’t have the money to pay.
In Lombardy alone, milk production involves 7,000 companies and is worth three billion euros. On Sunday 9 July, during the LegaFest in Adro, in the province of Brescia, Copagri delivered the tables showing the incorrect distribution of fines in Italy to Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini: «He promised us that by the first half of July he would have convened an inter-ministerial table to finally address the problem», says Cavaliere. And the farmers are waiting for him at the gate.
On the table, alongside the fines, there is also the issue of the price of milk: «The international market is under tension – explains Cavaliere – the availability of milk is decreasing and yet in Italy, from January to today, the price has decreased by almost 20%”. The agreement which at the end of 2022 had set the minimum price per liter at 60 cents to be paid to farmers «lasted only a few months – says Cavaliere – now we are taking 50, and the costs for us have doubled. In June, Parmalat even dropped to 48 cents».
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