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Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP
Police officers are sprayed with milk by European milk farmers during a demonstration outside the European Parliament in Brussels on Nov. 26.
John Thys / AFP - Getty Images
A dairy farmers holds a hose spraying milk at a protest against EU agricultural policies at the Place du Luxembourg, near the European Parliament, in Brussels, on Nov. 26.
Yves Herman / Reuters
A riot police is seen covered in milk as farmers dump milk on the European Parliament during a demonstration in Brussels on Nov. 26.
Reuters -- Dairy farmers sprayed thousands of gallons of fresh milk at the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday in protest at what they say are excessive milk quotas and prices below the cost of production.
Hundreds of farmers and tractors from across Europe took up position in a park near the European Commission and a square in front of the parliament in the early afternoon, after blocking traffic along several of Brussels' busiest streets.
They then turned their hoses on parliament, a collection of vast marble, glass and steel buildings on a Brussels square, and unleashed torrents of milk, some of it raining down on police and passers-by.
Afterwards they set alight barrels of hay and a pile of tires, sending plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. They plan to stay put outside parliament until Tuesday afternoon.
The European Milk Board, which coordinated the two-day protest, said prices with current quotas were putting small farmers out of business. In Belgium, for example, the board said the wholesale price for a quarter gallon of milk was around 34 cents, but the cost of producing it is more than 50 cents. Continue reading.
Julien Warnand / EPA
Farmers spray milk at riot police during a demonstration on the 'Place du Luxembourg' near the European parliament building in Brussels, Belgium, on Nov. 26.
Yves Herman / Reuters
European milk producers demonstrate outside the European Parliament in Brussels on Nov. 26.
Yves Herman / Reuters
Farmers stand among hundreds of tractors during a demonstration in central Brussels on Nov. 26.
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Like children throwing a temper tantrum. What a waste of food.
I agree. Milk farmers have known all along that they're in an industry in which price is highly regulated by government, so they shouldn't be "crying over spilled milk".
They're financial situation can't be that bad if they have that much milk to shoot at police.
Can't store milk. MAKE CHEESE. This same thing has happened in the United States several times in the past 50 years. I remember the Milk riots, bread riots and gas riots when milk was worth 10cents a gallon, 5cents a loaf and gas was 14-17cents per gallon. Life is a pendulum, prices swing both ways eventually.
Part of the problem may be the subsidized payments that each farmer gets depending on the various European governments, Brussels included they live within. They aren't getting enough income from lack of produce grown.Plus what they must pay in taxes, add what is paid out to sustain their animals and business. Bottom line, they simply aren't making enough money to cover their costs.
I have a sister who married a dairy farmer. It cost quite a bit for "room and board." The large herd of cows get milked twice daily, seven days a week.It is expensive feeding them a special diet, maintaining the auto milking machines so they don't have to hand milk the cows, processing the milk in large vats then loading the milk into trucks for shipping it out. They also have special beds the cows sleep on.
Then there are the vet bills, check ups required, etc. Then sterilizing everything milk and cows comes in contact with, after each milking to start over again.Including the gates and floors. It does get expensive. If family had to pay others to do the work, they couldn't afford to pay them. It is family owned and run.This is why the milk farmers are upset.
Milk is totally not needed to be healthy except for the mothers milk which few allow to be taken because of the lack of government regulation and taxing of the female boob. A diet of hearty ale brings up a lad right.
I wonder how many of you would happily work for less than it costs you to get to work and wear the proper clothing and such. Did you miss the part about them being paid less than it costs them to produce.
Steve I would have to say the cows do the producing and only ask for room and board.
What these farmers are stating is, that there life's investment is collapsing due to the low cost of milk. There is nothing funny about some of the post replied on here. How many of these that posted would work 7 days a week without a day off, and next to nothing for a profit. That's not saying anything that the average investment on a farm of adequate size is roughly $200K in American currency.
Sure, many would say then just fold and find another way to make a living. The problem with that is, most jobs are very tough to find these days; and this would add considerable more people searching for employment. However let's consider another scenario with all the small farmers out of business and large cooperation's running massive dairy operations would put a very stronghold on the market. What may be cheap dairy products today might very well double in cost when the competition in gone. There may come a day when all of us in urban areas are without food; and, then where will we all turn when the little protesters that some laugh about are gone. Becuase the cooperations might strongholding the food supply, and were without any food on the shelves to feed ourselves.
We need to give these farmers some credit here for standing up for their livelyhood and have some respect for them.
The dairy industry is, by nature, brutal. Milk cows are repeatedly impregnated to produce calves for whom the milk is naturally intended. Most of the calves they bear are denied the milk and, instead, sent to be raised in severe confinement, fed food lacking in nutrients to ensure the whitest possible meat, and then brutally slaughtered. That tender, white, virtually tasteless meat is then usually covered in sauce. Could anything be more inhumane or inane? Smaller farmers are more likely to show some concern for their milk bearing cows but when they cannot provide, they too are sent to slaughter. It is a brutal business, regardless of scale. Soy or almond "milk" is safer, superior in nutrition and far more humane.
I think what most commentators are missing is that, in most countries, milk is a state-controlled monopoly. This removes product differentiation and forces small producers out who would normally find niche markets.
Benito Mussolini said, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
I don't know if this is true in the EU, but it is certainly true in Canada, where milk marketing boards work with public health authorities to eliminate products they cannot compete with, like carefully produced raw milk.