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German farmers and dairy against milk contract obligation
The Deutsche Bauernverband (DBV), Germany's largest farmers' association, and the dairy association MIV (German NZO) are against mandatory contracts for the supply of milk to industry, as proposed by Agriculture Minister Özdemir. They accuse the minister of pretending to help farmers, while in practice he only aims for lower milk prices.
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It is striking that the DBV is the most critical in terms of language, while the implementation of Article 148 of the Common Market Organisation Regulation in German national legislation should help farmers. However, the DBV does not feel helped at all by the legislation that Özdemir proposes, but speaks of distortion of given advice and calls the proposal 'a scandal'. Özdemir, who is a member of the German Greens, would only want to score cheap points with it in the current election campaign.
Price, volume and duration
Article 148 of the GMO has been discussed in Germany for almost two years. The aim of the European regulation is to make farmers stronger against industry and retail. Özdemir wants to do this by obliging farmers and dairy companies to make fixed agreements on the volume, price and contract duration for at least 80% of the milk to be delivered. According to him, the cooperative dairy industry must also meet this requirement. This is to give farmers more business security. Özdemir says that he is partly basing his bill on the advice of the Future Commission for Agriculture.
The latter is impossible according to the DBV, because there are no recommendations from this committee on which the proposals of the minister can be based. Holger Hennies, one of the vice-chairmen of the DBV was in the Future Committee and says he can prove immediately that the minister is not telling the truth. According to Hennies, the mandatory contracting only leads to lower milk prices for the farmer.
German dairy lamb
The German Milchindustrieverband (MIV) also has major objections, but on different points. According to this organization, the minister is paralyzing the dairy industry by imposing severely restrictive national regulations on a sector that has to operate in an international and also very volatile market. A fundamental objection to Özdemir's plan is that he wants to restrict free competition with his proposals, and thus unilaterally weaken the German dairy industry. According to the MIV, his proposals also undermine the principle of freedom of contract.