‘Follow Where the Milk Will Be Taken’

The Board for Associations of the Croatian Chamber of Agriculture (HPK) and representatives of farmers’ associations from ten continental counties today requested an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Zoran Milanović and Ministers of Finance and Agriculture Slavko Linić and Tihomir Jakovina regarding essential problems in agriculture, and if this meeting does not occur, they announce mass protests.

-“We expect Prime Minister Milanović, Ministers Linić and Jakovina to organize a meeting with representatives of associations and HPK by February 28 to discuss essential problems in agriculture,” said the President of the HPK Board for Associations, Stjepan Kunovec, at a press conference held after a lengthy meeting in Nova Gradiška.

-“If the meeting does not take place, we agreed today that we will register protests for March 4,” emphasized Kunovec.

We are requesting an urgent meeting because we have not had the opportunity to discuss essential problems in agriculture with the relevant minister in the past year. We expect the Ministry of Agriculture and Minister of Finance Linić to execute the payment of subsidies for 2012 in full as soon as possible, Kunovec stressed.

From today’s meeting, a call was sent to all associations to join these positions in order to jointly organize protests.

According to all indications, milk producers could be the first to respond to the protests, and they still have no information about the removal of milk that dairies have stopped purchasing due to aflatoxins.

-“We call on the public to closely monitor where such milk will be taken. We fear that instead of being removed in an appropriate manner, our milk could be taken to dairies for processing. The situation is such that warehouses are full, sales have dropped by 40 percent, and someone now wants to get rid of their stocks,” claims Petar Pranjić, president of the Baranjska brazda association.

Dairies stopped purchasing milk from farms where elevated levels of aflatoxins were found in the milk about five or six days ago, and from some producers, it is learned that Dukat representatives were taking milk samples for testing today.

Among the producers who are running out of capacity to store accumulated milk is the Vukovac family farm from Velika Kopanica in the Brod-Posavina County.

-“We expect a comprehensive solution to the problem. We can easily calculate the damages, but I fear they are not ready to fully compensate us for the damages. The dairy industry is already in serious trouble, we have loans hanging over us. Milk is our only income, and now we are throwing it into the sewer; I don’t know if people are aware of that. First of all, the minister is obviously not aware, as he has not ordered an independent analysis. We are convinced that we are throwing away healthy milk at a time when people are hungry,” said Ružica Vukovac during a visit by journalists to the family farm.

She also states that it is easy to calculate the damage on her farm. This farm delivers about 2,000 liters of milk daily to dairies, the purchase price is 2.50 kuna with factory premiums, so the Vukovac family is losing about 5,000 kuna daily on milk, and this should also be added to the cost of feed for the cows of about 3,000 kuna.