Several business groups have asked the Serbian government to allow dairy exports, which have been banned since early September. They want to do this to keep food prices in Serbia from going up too much.
The secretary of the Livestock Association, Nenad Budimovi, told the local press that these results came from the decision to stop selling dairy products to foreign customers. However, interventions like this can’t last for a long time because they would hurt more than help, especially for companies with big export contracts.
“The ban has been in place for two months, and we have to remember that there are companies with contracts to export to the Cefta region, which includes Montenegro and Bosnia,” Budimovi said. He added that his organisation had asked the government to end the ban and find “a systemic solution” to protect the domestic market.
Raw milk segment
As a result of the export ban, there may be more pressure on raw milk producers to make more milk. In the past few years, Serbia’s milk production has been going down steadily. Farmgate milk prices have gone down because of the new rules.
OVERVIEW OF GLOBAL DAIRY MARKET PRICES
“I’m afraid that extending restrictions won’t be good for raw milk production,” Budimovi said. He explained that some large dairy plants in the country already have trouble getting raw milk because farmers are cutting back on their operations, and that milk production in Serbia isn’t spread out evenly.
Budimovic says that the situation in the central and southern parts of Serbia is very different from Vojvodina, which has a lot of big milk farms and no problems getting raw milk. The other part of the problem is that the livestock industry has been in trouble for a long time, and the export ban has made things worse for farmers who were already in bad financial shape.
Also, read about four global trends that are driving the demand for dairy products
This year, global dairy trends were a big part of the World Dairy Expo. What makes people want dairy? What effect does the way people live have on the dairy market? How does technology affect demand now, and what kinds of technological growth have we seen? These topics were talked about by Megan Sheets, who is the senior director of strategic development and strategic insights at the US Dairy Export Council. Read on…
Irreversible damage
Recently, the lack of milk got the attention of Serbian President Alexander Vucic, who said on TV that Serbia has to import milk from Poland and other European countries to fill the gaps in the market. Vucic said that Serbia needs to accept that the amount of raw milk it makes is going down because “we can’t be successful in everything.”
But some milk farmer groups were worried that the current government policy could hurt the milk farming segment in a way that couldn’t be fixed.
OVERVIEW OF GLOBAL DAIRY MARKET PRICES
“The most important thing to know is that a country cannot have agriculture if it does not raise cattle and make milk. So, if we don’t have cattle and milk production, we won’t be able to talk about agriculture,” said Sanja Bugarski, a representative for Serbia’s association of cattle breeders.
