Agriculture, Foodstuff, Latvia, Markets and Companies

International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Thursday, 28.03.2024, 19:07

Prices for some dairy products in Latvia have almost doubled over the past few months, while farmers' incomes don’t increase

BC, Riga, 08.08.2017.Print version
While prices of dairy products have increased steeply in stores, this has had no effect on how much farmers are paid for milk, Gints Gutmanis from the Agricultural Organizations' Cooperation Council told LETA.

Prices for some dairy products in stores have almost doubled over the past few months, while farmers' incomes have not increased. "Dairy farms believe that they should be paid fairly for the milk they produce. At the moment, what farmers are sold for milk is roughly enough to cover production costs. If we see that some milk products now cost twice as much in stores, we would also like to be paid more for our milk, but that is not happening," said Gutmanis.


He emphasized that farmers had practically no effect on prices charged at stores. "I hope consumers realize that the prices are not rising at farmers' whim. Farmers are not paid double for milk. Unfortunately, consumers and dairy farms are those that have the least effect on milk prices in stores. Farmers can still barely make ends meet - so I would very much like to see how much dairy plants and stores earn from one liter of milk now," added Gutmanis.


As reported, according to Latvian Agricultural Market Promotion Center's estimates, prices climbed for dairy products during the second quarter of the year. The price of sour cream with 25% fat content went up 11%, from EUR 2.7 to EUR 3 per kilogram. Curd with 9% fat content, butter and Karums cream all rose in price by 10%, but prices of dairy products are expected to continue to rise.


In the meantime, farmers were paid EUR 291.46 per ton of milk this past June, which is 1.1% more than in May.






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