Money from the milk super-levy also needs to be kept in the sector to help it develop further.
We also need to discuss how to deal with the potential increase in price volatility when milk quotas expire in 2015. The move comes ahead of release of the upcoming report to be presented by the Commission in June.
Chairman of Copa-Cogeca Working Party on Milk and Dairy Products, Mansel Raymond, said “Demand for dairy products is on the rise, especially in the developing world and the emerging economies like China and India, where OECD-FAO predicts dairy consumption to rise by around 30% by 2021.
“EU dairy producers need to be in a good position to make use of these opportunities and have confidence to look forward to a profitable dairy industry”, he said. Dairy producers are trying to respond to this increased world demand but they are being penalized. Dairy farms are barely recovering their cash flow from the last severe price drop.
Copa-Cogeca consequently calls for the milk super-levy collected for 2014/2015 to go back to the sector. We must keep the money in the dairy sector. The adapted calculation of the fat correction coefficient based on the June report would be a good way to alleviate the pressure In addition, price volatility may increase in the future and we need to discuss how to deal with it, in a market orientated way. This was included in a position paper on developments in the EU milk sector approved by Copa-Cogeca this week.
