After pressure from EU governments, the European Commission decided to pay French farmers to temporarily store over 18,000 tons of cheese, in order to keep it off the market during the crisis. Brussels also announced private storage aid for butter and skimmed milk powder.
But instead, some farmers want the EU to pay them to reduce production, arguing that stockpiling cheese will only delay the oversupply problem, until it floods back onto the market, keeping prices low. The European Milk Board lobby, whose president, Erwin Schöpges, described the EU’s storage measures as “wrong,” will coordinate protests in eight EU countries, including France and Belgium, by dumping milk powder in fields Thursday.
Sylvain Louis, a dairy farmer in the Ardennes, will be one of roughly 20 farmers around France holding isolated protests on his own land, in line with the country’s lockdown rules.
“We have innumerable examples that the storage of milk doesn’t work,” he said, adding that he’ll be spreading milk powder across one of his fields with his wife and son.
“Brussels must provide our producers with more protections,” said Lacoste, adding that French cheesemakers have already lost €157 million in turnover since the coronavirus lockdown started.
The CNAOL launched a campaign on Monday to make sure a current 1,000-ton backlog of high-quality cheese does not end up going off.