Germans Lost Four Cents a Litre in January

GERMANY – German dairy farmers have, on average, made a loss of four cents per litre to start the year, new data shows.
calendar icon 17 June 2014
clock icon 1 minute read

The Office of Rural Sociology and Agriculture has revealed that cost of production for January, at 45.16 cents per kilo, outstripped farmgate milk prices of 41.46 cents.

MEG Milch Board calculations show an eight per cent deficit of mean income against farm outgoings.

Loss-making has been felt particularly in the south, around Saarland, Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse, suffering higher production costs of 50.20 cents.

Contrastingly, northern areas have reported greater profitability with costs at 39.89 cents, with Eastern farms in between at 43.26 cents.

The effect is loss of farms and knowledge as businesses close, from whole regions, warned European Milk Board President Romuald Schaber this month.

Mr Schaber backed calls for a monitoring agency to stabilise markets and analyse supply and demand.

This would ‘guarantee’ a price which would allow producers to cover their cost of production.

He said: "Unfortunately, one of the logical consequences of this deficit situation is that an increasing number of dairy farmers have no other choice than to end to production.

"In order to preserve the EU's food sovereignty in the future, we have to take action now, for example by putting in place a Monitoring Agency for the dairy sector."

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