Germany to provide €100m in aid to dairy farmers

The German Government intends to offer €100m in aid to help dairy farmers cope with falling milk prices.

German Minister for Agriculture Christian Schmidt said that the emergency aid would come in the form of loans and tax benefits.

Germany is the EU’s largest dairy producer with over 73,000 dairy farms are operating in the country, which produced 32 million tonnes of milk in 2014, which is one-fifth of the total milk production in the EU.

Schmidt was quoted by the Financial Times as saying: "We all agreed that on the one hand we need structural improvements, but on the other that we need to provide short-term assistance to farmers.

"The federal government will provide the farmers with a package of €100m plus X. I am in talks with the finance minister, and will talk to [Germany’s] states and Europe to determine how large the X is."

Due to oversupply of milk in the market, prices have plunged 20 cents per litre, while dairy farmers need 35 cents to make up the cost of producing milk.

However, the German Farmers’ Association president Joachim Rukwied was quoted by AAP as saying that farmers would need more financial aid than what was promised by the government to cover the costs.