Opposition Official Calls for Urgent Measures to Save Domestic Milk Production

Dusan Nikezic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC)

Freedom and Justice Party vice-president Dusan Nikezic said on Feb. 12 that the production of milk in Serbia would be extinguished unless the authorities immediately reacted.

In a statement, he said that Minister of Agriculture Dragan Glamocic was talking about "positive trends'" in the milk market at a time when the purchase price of milk had dropped to RSD25, while the retail price of skimmed milk was still RSD155. "Whose minister are you and whose interests are you protecting: Serbian milk producers' or importers', processors’ and retail chains'?," Nikezic asked, stressing that someone in the chain "is taking the cream, and that is definitely not Serbia's milk producers."

He added that dairy farmers, who have been protesting for two days and blocking roads, did not need any "favorable credit lines" as Glamocic was mentioning, but a decent purchase price and protection from importers of powdered milk and surpluses from surrounding markets." "If you do not do this immediately, you are going to extinguish Serbian dairy farming and livestock farming, and leave hundreds of thousands of producers jobless, and Serbia without its food sovereignty," Nikezic warned.