Milk Factories Risk to Become Substantial Importers - April 16 th, 2007
The delay of the structural funds and the lack of coherent preoccupation from the authorities can lead to the situation in which, in two years time, Romania will process mainly imported milk. The social consequences upon the 800,000 farmers living from milk deliveries (little or more) are easy to be pictured.
"Only 15% of the milk collected from farmers is EU-conform, and can therefore be exported after being processed", says Valeriu Steriu, president of APRIL.
This percentage varies according to season, reaching approximately 30% in winter and 10% in summer, but none of the situations is comfortable for Romania's dairy industry. Romania has been granted a three-year period from the moment of joining the European Union, when the status of the entire processed raw milk must become EU-conform. "If things are not getting better, we will have no choice but to import" added Steriu.
"The processing units which are being modernized and restructured are offered three years during which they can process non-conform milk too. The other units, that have reached the EU standards, can process non-conform milk until June 30th, 2008", explains Marian Avram, president of The National Sanitary-Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA).
This means, that those who have been modernized sooner must rely faster on imports, because it is difficult to believe that domestic production would become European so fast. "A definite program for making the dairy sector efficient is needed; otherwise there is danger to become importers. The program cannot be conceived though, without structural funds, which are delayed", says Dragos Frumosu, president of The Federation of food Industry Unions.
Recently, representatives of The Ministry of Agriculture announced that all farmers who have applied for quota for direct selling would benefit from an 11.97% discount of the requested quantity, because there are more applications than quota itself. The quantity of milk delivered by each producer did not matter for this general discount.
Source: Romania libera newspaper, April 16 th, 2007 |
