Delivery stop

Milk dispute also affects farmers in Burgenland

It's all about the milk. The grocery chain and the dairy were unable to agree on a purchase price - the result is a delivery stop.

(Bild: P. Huber)

The Burgenland Chamber of Agriculture is backing dairy farmers and showing solidarity with producers who are demanding a higher price for their milk.

As reported, tough negotiations are currently taking place between the dairy company NÖM and the Spar food chain. NÖM is demanding higher purchase prices. Because Spar does not accept this, the dairy has imposed a delivery stop. This milk dispute also affects farmers in Burgenland. Of the 71 dairy farms, 40 currently deliver to NÖM, the rest to Berglandmilch.

Prices up, income down
Nikolaus Berlakovich, President of the Chamber of Agriculture, is now backing the dairy farmers and their cooperative. "The high prices for fertilizers, seeds, operating resources, consumables and energy costs have hit farmers and their farms particularly hard," he explains. At the same time, the income situation of producers has deteriorated, with income from agriculture and forestry falling by 14% in the previous year.

Consumers should not pay more
However, the aim is not to increase the milk price for consumers, but to increase the share of value added that farmers receive. The current distribution provides for around 45 percent for retailers, 30 percent for farmers and 25 percent for dairies. Specifically, they want two cents more per liter of milk, according to Berlakovich and Otto Kaipel, member of the supervisory board of Milchgenossenschaft Niederösterreich (MGN) - himself a dairy farmer in the municipality of Wiesfleck.

Number of farms has fallen sharply recently
If the added value continues to develop in this way, he may have to suggest to his daughter that she look for a job instead of continuing to run the business, says Kaipel. Berlakovich points out that 108 farms were still supplying their milk to dairies in 2018, whereas today there are only 71 - a third less.

The food chain does not want to say much more about the issue, as everything has already been said. "We are in negotiations with NÖM," they say.

According to Kaipel, only around seven percent of NÖM milk goes to Spar.