SHEPHERDS PROTEST: WAKE UP AT 5 AM TO EARN 60 CENTS. MILKING A SHEEP IS WORTH LESS THAN THE PRICE OF A CUP OF COFFEE, SAYS COLDIRETTI

Wake up call at 5 am for the morning milking and then there’s the afternoon milking, to earn a total of 60 cents per liter of milk, while the costs of raising a sheep come to about one euro. Coldiretti, the Federation of Italian farmers, has promoted a campaign to bring awareness to the 70.000 sheep farms that will be forced to close, due to this situation. The situation is not much better for wool as the shearing and disposal costs are much higher than revenues nor is it any better for meat when at Easter farmers sell at 4 euros a kilo while retailers sell at 10-12 euros a kilo.

Domestic production of goat milk has shown a downward trend over the last five years. “Goat farming”, says Coldiretti “is a labor intensive activity concentrated in deprived areas. There has been an increase in costs, particularly for fuel, electricity and feed, resulting in further pressure on the industry, which is already facing a competition crisis. The steady decline of consumption of goat products is concerning. Even on foreign markets, strategies to defend the image of typical Italian products have been limited and instead of buying Pecorino Romano (95% of goat cheese exports) consumers are substituting with similar products from other competitors. Furthermore, depending too much on exports of a single product (Pecorino Romano) on a single market (United States) has made it extremely vulnerable throughout the chain, as the negative sales trend in the last five years has shown.

Finally, increasing imports of sheep meat in the EU has produced a down effect on the domestic product because since it is not mandatory to indicate the label of origin - Agi -imported meat can be peddled as domestic.