1M-tonne surplus?

Press, 14 April 1984, Page 10

1M-tonne surplus?

NZPA-Reuter Strasbourg The European Economic Community’s surplus butter mountain could top the one-million-tonne mark by the end of this year despite sharp cuts in milk production,the Community’s Agriculture Commissioner said yesterday. The commissioner, Poul Dalsager, told the European Parliament that the 7.5 per cent cut in community milk output agreed on last month would also aggravate the group’s problems in disposing of enormous stocks of beef. ••

At the last count Community warehouses and cold stores held more than

850,000 tonnes of excess butter and 400,000 tonnes of beef. Delays in implementing the milk production cuts, which will lop nine million tonnes off forecast production this year, will mean butter stocks will continue to rise. What-does not go into adding to the butter mountain could well go to topping up the beef peak as farmers slaughter thousands of cows to escape penalties for excess milk output, experts say. Meanwhile the Community is headed for what the Parliamentary Agriculture Committee’s chairman,

David Curry (Conservative, Britain) called a “catastrophically good cereals harvest.” “We could well find that if this year was the year of the cow, next year may be the year of the corn,” Mr Curry said, noting that dairy farmers may choose to switch to cereal production if they cannot sell their milk. Mr Dalsager said that the Community’s future agriculture policy must focus on the needs of poorer farmers in underdeveloped areas rather than on guaranteeing price rises to efficient farmers who had grown rich on subsidies in the past.