Croatian milk producers are demanding a rise in the purchasing price of milk under threat of halting distribution to daries.

Igor Resetar, the president of the alliance of the milk producers’ associations HSUPM has said that the current buying price of 2.40 kunas per liter (0.33 Euros) is unsustainable. The production costs are higher than the price, he said.

More and more of Croatia’s dairy farms are closing, Resetar warns. The country had 27,556 milk producers just three years ago. Today, their numbers have dwindled to 17,469.

Domestic production fell by 50 million liters in the first nine months of this year, or nine per cent. Milk factories say that the demand has also fallen by five per cent.

Dairy farmers say that while milk prices in Italy, Germany and France have gone up 20-30 per cent in the last year, in Croatia they have remained the same for months.
In the statement sent in the name of the dairy manufacturers, the economic interest association Croatiastocar claims that the buying price of milk in Croatia is five per cent higher than those in the EU25.

They have also been rising annually, it is claimed. In October this year year they were 20 per cent higher than in 2009.

Despite that, the production of milk is dropping, they say mainly because of the suspension of a program that encouraged producers to invest in production, ensuring 50 per cent return on capital investments, a smaller availability of credit lines, bad weather, floods but also low yield of milk per cow. Croatian cows yield 35 per cent less milk than those in EU25, they say.

According to them, production dropped by 7.7 per cent in the first nine months of 2010, and there are 15 per cent fewer small milk producers.

If the negative trend continues, this would certainly devastate the dairy sector, they say.