Spain: Incentives EC to the voluntary reduction of milk production

Spain will ask the European Commission for incentives to farmers who voluntarily reduced their milk production, as reported by the CEO of Productions and Agricultural Markets, Fernando Miranda, who estimated that the measure is help contain further milk production.

Fernando Miranda made these statements after the meeting of the Consultative Council of Agricultural Policy, which has today chaired the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Isabel García Tejerina, to deal with the directors of the autonomous communities issues to be addressed in the next Council of Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries of the European Union.

Speaking to the media, Miranda commented on the possibility that the Commissioner of Agriculture announced a new package of measures for sectors in crisis, such as dairy cattle, pigs and fruit and vegetables, although currently not knows the level of specificity of the measures as it is known pending budgetary possibilities. On that issue, the CEO has commented the support of Spain to that package be financed budget surplus of 2016, and never through the reserve crisis.

According to statements by Miranda, Spain and several Member States advocate measures to stabilize production, but with EU funding. In that regard, he clarified that the application of Article 222 (voluntary self-regulation that had to take the Interprofessional and Producer Organizations), has not been successful so far in the European Union, “so we understand that the stabilization measures production and financing should come from the European Union. ”

Also, Miranda noted that the Commission has already submitted a proposal to increase the limit purchases by public intervention of skimmed milk powder. The previous limit was 218,000 tons, (already with the previous limit was doubled) and now will expand to 350,000 tons. “We believe this decision will have a positive effect to achieve rebalance the Union market where an imbalance between supply and demand persists.”

However, Miranda stressed that market observers are already showing positive signs of a possible market rebalancing end of the year. For its part, Spain is registering prices above the Community average, (28.9 euros and 29.5 euros per kilo liter) due largely to the Agreement on the stability and sustainability of the dairy sector. In his opinion, “this agreement has meant that all chain operators are doing an exercise of containment, which favors that contributions in Spain are above the EU average for the fourth consecutive month.”

Higher withdrawal prices for fruit and vegetables

Referring to other sectors, the CEO highlighted in the case of pigs the positive trend of an increase in prices of 21% in the past seven weeks. However, it believes that we must continue expectantly at the evolution of this market and, in any case, does not rule out the possibility of aid for private storage.

With regard to fruit and vegetables, Miranda has valued the extension of the measures to address the Russian veto, which will enter into force on 1 July. It also mentioned the approval by the Ministry of a quota of transformation of peach and nectarine juice for delivery to charities, a move that will enable the sector to “have a floor price that will allow to face this campaign fruit summer with certain guarantees. “However, he assured that Spain will continue to call on the Council of Ministers of the Union a increase ofwithdrawal prices of fruits and vegetables, “a demand which our country leads with the support of France and Italy.”

Source: MAGRAMA