Some farmers who produce South Tyrol’s renowned milk are under double attack. They have to drastically reduce production, at the risk of going out of business. So decided the Province of Bolzano and the big local dairies, Sterzing, Meran, Brimi, Mila, Sexten, Three Peaks, Burgeis. Brands that are famous because they are associated with South Tyrolean milk, but also import large quantities of the cheaper foreign milk.
South Tyrolean milk, ‘milk quotas’ return for farmers
The downfall of small farmers begins in mid-2018. For years the dairies of which they are founding members have been asking for more milk. Suddenly, the reversal.
In the first half of 2018, the large South Tyrolean dairies, which buy 98 percent of the milk, amended their statutes and regulations in the same way.
Under the new rules, each member can contribute an amount of milk associated with his or her availability of forage land within provincial boundaries, or even only in certain municipalities. For each hectare with ‘the papers in order’, 2.5 LUs (adult cattle units) are allowed to be raised, to be reduced to 1.8 depending on altitude.
The rule of 2.5 heads per hectare
The news is disastrous for many. Flat lands suitable for fodder cultivation are few and expensive in South Tyrol. In addition, the rule of limited number of heads per hectare is suitable for few.
‘Not counting the replacement cows, at least 30 dairy cows are needed to make a living from milk production, so 12 hectares of forage land. Too many, considering that the average in that area is instead 6 hectares.
The rules introduced have nothing to do with organic production, which is governed by timely European regulations that stipulate quite different obligations. Let alone bring any environmental or nutritional benefit‘, explains David Röttgen, an environmental law attorney.
Those who go astray pay. Farmers are already experiencing the effects of the new rules. Dairies have issued penalties of hundreds of thousands of euros to ‘overproductive’ members. And every year the fines will be higher. Finally, from 2023, those who try to produce ‘too much’ milk will be expelled from their dairy. There is no escape. Dairies prohibit giving the surplus to third parties. By statute, members can keep only the milk needed for household consumption and must give everything else to the cooperative.
The betrayal of the covenant
Relations between dairy leaders and rebellious farmers are obviously bad. They are referred to as ‘black sheep’ in an already explosive climate due to the incessant dying of farms.
Already, among the farmers forced to cut back on South Tyrolean milk production are those who have to resort to second jobs to make up for lost earnings and honor the repayments on loans taken out to develop their farms. Those who see their dreams of handing over the family business to their daughter who is studying agriculture fade away. Life projects shattering without a clear why.
Better foreign milk?
The reason for the new rules introduced by dairies is indeed elusive. The 2.5 head/hectare criterion does not serve to ensure that milk is produced with fodder from local land. In fact, it is also permitted to buy harvested elsewhere.
Some speculate that dairies want to reduce supplies from South Tyrolean founding members only to buy cheaper milk elsewhere. Imports from Austria, Germany and Belgium are, after all, already well underway, as Christoph Franceschini documents for the local website salto.bz and as we can tell by reading the labels of the dairy products we find in the supermarket.
Sterzing brand products, for example, while recalling the famous South Tyrolean town, are not necessarily made with only South Tyrolean milk. Least of all are products made for GDO (large-scale retail trade), which sells them under private label.
Unsustainability of the environmental measure
Unfounded also seems to be the environmental argument. That is, to reduce livestock and milk production to curb manure spreading and the resulting nitrate pollution in water.
The idea would be noble, but it has little credibility. In fact, the 2.5 head per hectare rule imposed by dairies on members does not allow for exceptions. Not even if the manure is sold to upcycling plants, such as the one just a stone’s throw away, the award-winning Biogas Wipptal, which turns manure into organic manure and will soon produce biomethane for road transport. (1)
Against the construction of this facility, the City of Sterzing has appealed to the administrative justice system twice in the past 10 years, always coming out defeated in the end.
The dairies’ version
‘The goal pursued with the introduction of the UBA/hectare rule is not to reduce production, but to feed cows with South Tyrolean forage. This is not always possible, but it already happens for two-thirds of the forage used‘, Annemarie Kaser, director of the Dairy Federation South Tyrol, tells Great Italian Food Trade.
The executive rejects the suggestion that South Tyrolean milk will be replaced by supplies from outside South Tyrol. ‘Since the introduction of the UBA/hectare rule, milk production has remained stable on average. And the need for increased supplies occurs only at certain times of the year, especially in summer when yogurt consumption increases‘.
How much milk is imported, however, is unknown. The many requests made in recent years have gone unanswered, as we have seen.
Provincial greenwashing
The scheme adopted by the South Tyrolean dairies will have different purposes, but in fact copies the ‘environmentalist’ UBA/hectare criterion adopted by Decree 6/2008 of the Province of Bolzano.
In order to preserve waters from nitrate pollution, in fact, in Art. 16 the text introduces a cap on nitrogen input to the environment per hectare.
To facilitate calculations, the law relates nitrogen quantities per hectare to an indicative number of cattle per hectare, introducing the example of 2.5 LU (adult cattle units) per hectare. (2)
Simplifications aside, for nitrate regulations only the amount of nitrogen contributed to the soil is relevant. So if a livestock farmer does not contribute nitrogen to the soil because he or she delivers animal manure to properly licensed facilities, nitrate regulations impose no limit on the number of animals per hectare.
From example to diktat the road is short. Without taking into account certified transfers of manure, the source of the contamination, the Province of Bolzano has adopted the UBA/hectare criterion as a prerequisite for agricultural subsidies, including European ones.
An apparent forcing of the rules, highly detrimental to the rights of dairy farmers producing South Tyrolean milk, ‘which will have to be evaluated under the profiles of greenwashing,’ warns David Röttgen.
But it is not only the issue of greenwashing that arises.
Cooperatives and competition
‘The statutory reforms of the large South Tyrolean dairies, in their contextuality and homogeneity, could underlie competition-distorting agreements. With serious and unacceptable prejudice to the rights of small farmers‘, comments lawyer Dario Dongo, founder of Great Italian Food Trade and FARE (
Food and Agriculture Requirements
).
‘Even cooperatives-as the European Commission itself recently reminded in the Conserve Italia case-must abide by the rules. And it is therefore also essential to ensure the protection of their members from unfair business practices‘.
Marta Strinati
Notes
(1) The procedure is defined by Commission Decision (EU) 2018/813 of May 14, 2018 a Best Environmental Management Practice (see Section 3.7.2. Anaerobic digestion).
(2)‘The annual amount of fertilizer, understood as the average farm quantity, applied on agricultural land, except for garden and nursery, may not exceed the following amounts of nitrogen:
(a) 213 kg N/ha (2.5 LU/ha): for forage areas located at an elevation up to 1,250 m above sea level;
(b) 187 kg N/ha (2.2 LU/ha): for forage areas located above 1,250 m above sea level and up to 1,500 m above sea level;
(c) 170 kg N/ha (2.0 LU/ha): for forage areas located above 1,500 m above sea level and up to 1,800 m above sea level;
(d) 153 kg N/ha (1.8 LU/ha): for forage areas located at an elevation above 1,800 mabove sea level’, Decree of the President of the Province of Bolzano 6/2008, art.16.
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
