Ahead of EU Farm Ministers meeting on Monday, Copa-Cogeca presented at a major press conference key actions needed in the sector as well as an overview of the market situation.
Speaking at the Conference, Copa-Cogeca Working Party Chairman Mansel Raymond stressed “European dairy producers need a clear signal from EU Agricultural Ministers on Monday about the short and long term developments in the dairy sector. World demand for dairy products is there. In the last couple of years, strong global demand for dairy products has been a key driver of the sector. And it is expected to be favourable in the medium-term, forecast to grow by 2.3% annually up to 2020. Farmers worldwide respond to positive market signals. In 2013, EU dairy exports reached 2.7 million tonnes of dairy products, with a value of around 10 billion euros. Russia, China and the US have been attractive destinations for ourproducts, with a sharp rise in demand seen in China”.
He continued “Farmers need to be in a position to make use of these growing market opportunities. But there is a real cash flow recovery problem in the sector, which has impacted on milk producers’ incomes. In order to take advantage of the market opportunities, we need to alleviate pressure on producers. We need to ensure that money from the milk superlevy is kept in the sector and that measures are taken in order to ease the burden on milk producers who are desperately trying to recover their cash flow”.
Copa-Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen stressed “Increased price volatility is also a key concern for European milk producers and dairy cooperatives given that it prevents them from making investments and from responding to societys’ demands. This has a severe impact on the 750,000 specialised milk producers across the EU, from the most productive systems to mountain areas, for which milk production is their only source of income. It is vital to maintain current tools to address the increased market volatility, like public intervention. In the longer term, we need to discuss further how to address the increased price volatility in a market-orientated way, and complementary to the milk package provisions”.
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Mr Pesonen went on to welcome the fact that the Commission presented a report today on the milk market situation and implementation of the EU milk package which aims to strengthen contractual relations between farmers and processors and improve farmers positioning, enabling them to get a better price for their milk. “The milk package is a positive step taken in 2012 to have a better organisation of the sector and to improve milk producers’ position on the market, in a more harmonised framework. It is too early to assess all its benefits”, Mr Pesonen said.
