New Zealand has waded into the war of words over who or what is to blame for low dairy prices.
Last week Dairy Australia pointed the finger of blame directly at increased volumes of milk in Europe as the main reason for low dairy prices worldwide.
The continued production has cemented Europe’s place as the main source of the milk supply ‘problem’ for sellers in international markets, it said.
And now, New Zealand’s Federated Farmers has said that European farming supports are partially to blame.
Its Dairy Chairman Andrew Hoggard said subsidies given to European farmers are partly responsible for current global dairy prices.
Hoggard was speaking at the Dairy Council and Sharemilkers’ section conference and said the current slump in dairy prices is due to both “cyclical and structural” issues.
“It started with a single cyclical event; low demand from China and high levels of supply worldwide,” he said.
He also said it was hypocritical for European dairy farmers to want to export such volumes but not
“But what is holding down prices is an underlying structural issue with the global dairy market.”
Subsidies and such support payments, he said, have the effect of insulating farmers from the reality of the world markets.
