Struggling Dairy Industry

“Don’t cry over spilled milk” took on a whole new meaning today after Belgian dairy farmers literally dumped a day’s worth of milk production in their fields in protest of the extremely low milk prices around the world. It was an act of sheer desperation that has been met with shock and dismay, but like our own dairy farmers here in the United States European milk producers are struggling to survive while the price of milk continues to plummet, forcing dairy farmers the world over to sell their milk at less than it cost them to produce and leaving many farmers on the verge of bankruptcy. It seems the European milk producers are divided over such a brash act, many refusing to spill their milk or join the proposed “milk strike”. While no one wants to see soaring milk prices the milk producer’s frustration and desperation is easy to empathize with. The path that brought dairy farmers to this point was long and involved a number of different issues. The path back to financial stability for the world’s dairy farmers is going to prove to be just as long and a bumpy one indeed.