Lithuanian dairy farmers are organising a protest over low rates they are paid for raw milk. During the action, they are erecting crosses outside supermarkets and dairy processing plants.
“There is no limit to the number and size of crosses. Farmers will stand at the crosses during the action,” according to the announcement of the protest on Facebook. “The action can also be extended to shops and processing plants if there is enough initiative.”
The organisers are calling on farmers to join the action on Monday to protest against raw milk purchase prices, which they say are the lowest in the EU, and to demand “a fair distribution of added value in the food chain” and “fair food prices for consumers”.
In their statement issued on Sunday, the organisers say that the protesters will demand “to hold real tripartite negotiations among farmers, processors and traders (and) to stop blackmailing the Lithuanian state by continuously reducing prices” and will seek “to draw the public’s attention to the unfair price distribution in the food chain”.
In 2019, farmers erected green crosses in their fields to protest against taxes.
The Agriculture Ministry has said that raw milk purchase prices in Lithuania, which exports up to 70 percent of its dairy products, started to fall last October due to a significant drop in cream, butter and hard cheese prices in foreign markets.
This has affected the competitiveness of Lithuanian dairy products and sales, leading to the accumulation of surplus dairy products in warehouses, according to the ministry.
Figures from the Agricultural Information and Rural Business Centre show that the average raw milk purchase price in Lithuania fell for the second month in a row in December to 0.51 euro per kilogram, down by 6.7 percent from November, but up by 19.3 percent year-on-year.
Milk producers have said that if the situation continues to worsen, they may have to close down their farms.
Meanwhile, processors maintain that purchase prices are strongly influenced by export markets, where both prices and demand have fallen in recent months.
The Agriculture Ministry says that it will initiate legislative changes shortly to index raw milk product prices to dairy product sales prices.
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