German Milk Farmers Relax Blockade of Dairies

Thousands of striking German dairy farmers started to relax their blockades of dairies staged, but they continue the protest in front of retail shops.

Dairy farmers in Germany and other
European Union countries including Belgium and the Netherlands Latvia
have organised a series of protests at falling milk prices in the
last week.

German farmers have been refusing to
deliver milk to dairies for seven days and over half of the country's
100 large dairies were blockaded by tractors and other vehicles,
action which drew sharp criticism from German politicians as illegal.

German and other EU milk prices have
fallen sharply since April, when the European Union raised its
production quota limits largely to calm the milk market which had
seen prices shot up EU-wide since June 2007.

German supermarkets said milk supplies
generally remained sufficient although milk was running out in some
areas.