Thousands of farmers protesting across Europe

Copa-Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen warned “Hit by the unprecedented crisis, over 5000 farmers with 600 tractors demonstrated today in Finland alone. Mass protests have been taking place across Europe, including in Ireland, Italy, France, Spain, Scotland, and in Brussels on Monday. Farmers and agri-cooperatives  face serious cash flow problems and many are being forced out of business. They were badly affected when we lost our main export market – Russia - worth 5.1 billion euros overnight as a result of international politics. Input prices are rising and the collapse in oil prices has put down pressure on commodity prices. The situation is unacceptable. The 500 million euros package released by the EU last September is a drop in the ocean and cannot deal with the bad situation and only 25% of the aid has been paid out. The EU must act now or the EU will be unable to feed a growing population in the future”.
“Our Presidents will meet the Dutch Presidency on Monday to press our demands and package of measures that we have submitted to the EU Commission to improve the drastic situation”, he insisted. 

The package of measures includes: 
•         Re-opening of the Russian market;
•         Reinforcement of promotion measures and use of export credit insurance;
•         Combatting unfair practices along the food chain so that farmers get a better return for their produce and are not squeezed unfairly by retailers (currently getting only 20% of the market price of a price of steak for example);
•         Adaptation of tools to manage key commodity markets: temporarily increase the intervention price for skimmed milk powder (SMP) and butter taking into account the increased production costs; extension of private storage aid (PSA) for pork and dairy products; update market tools for the fruit and vegetables sector, including review of the withdrawal price.
•         Establish pilot projects allowing the use of fats that can no longer be used as a foodstuff for the production of biofuels or other non-food purpose.
•         Reduce the cost of inputs by removing import duties, especially for fertilisers, machinery, and other production factors.
•         Loan/debt relief for investments, state aid, and adjustment of the ceiling for de minimis aid.
•         Make full use of tools under EU rural development policy and national schemes to help farmers better manage risk.
•         voluntary measures set up to give farmers and dairy industry instruments to moderate their production (Article 222)
•         Extension of EU milk market observatory to other sectors other than dairy