Portugal should continue to support milk producers in dealing with the current market crisis, said the country’s Agriculture Minister Luís Capoulas Santos on Monday.
The minister, who was visiting the Agroleite agricultural and milk product fair in Póvoa de Varzim, near Porto, gave assurances the government would continue to provide support.
About 50 milk producers from the north of Portugal demonstrated at the fair on Thursday morning calling for “more justice in the prices paid to producers.”
The farmers said the “sector is suffocating” and the government must take measures to mitigate the difficulties that affect so many producers.
The protestors said that “if milk imports were reduced and domestic production used instead, Portuguese producers could sell another 20 million litres a year”.
In response the minister said "We are in a market economy and we can’t set prices, so the support we provide is to minimise this low market cycle. Otherwise the situation would become completely desperate”, Capoulas Santos said.
The Agriculture Minister said that despite recent press criticism of excessive support for the sector the government planned to keep “a support package of tens of millions of euros” in place.
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