HPK participated at a meeting of the CDG Milk (Civil dialogue group on milk) on Tuesday where they discussed the situation and trends surrounding the price of raw milk in the EU, chairman of the Milk Committee at HKP Igor Rešetar said.
“We saw that in countries Croatia imports milk from the most, the price of fresh milk has increased on average by 8-12% in the past year, while the price in Croatia remained the same throughout 2021,” said Rešetar.
Croatia has one of the lowest raw milk price rises, yet despite all the problems last year, 428,700 tonnes of milk were delivered, which is 1.3% less than the year before. The number of dairy farmers has fallen by 500 and Croatia now has only 3,500, HPK underscored.
“The price of raw milk should be heading towards HRK 3.5 with VAT, which is the price that farmers in Italy, Austria and Poland have,” said Rešetar.
Despite the Ministry of Agriculture’s attempts to support the milk industry, HPK warned that the current situation is unsustainable and that further collapse could become dramatic. Croatia could be one of the rare countries left without local dairy farms.
HPK noted that milk production in Croatia is constantly on the decline. In 2015, 513,400 tonnes of milk was delivered compared to 434,200 tonnes in 2020. The situation in Slovenia is almost unchanged whereas in Serbia, it is increasing from 861,800 tonnes in 2015, to 907,700 tonnes in 2020.
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