Post by cenydd on Aug 8, 2013 18:08:18 GMT
A group of French farmers has been on another egg-breaking rampage in Brittany, destroying 100,000 outside a tax office a day after a similar protest over low prices.
The nebulous collective, which communicates through an unnamed spokesman, has pledged to smash 100,000 eggs in public places every day until the government meets its demands for measures to be taken to raise prices.
On Wednesday evening, the farmers went to the town of Carhaix in Brittany in France's northwest and hurled pallets full of eggs from a truck on to the road in front of the tax office.
The previous night, they had destroyed 100,000 eggs in the neighbouring Cotes d'Armor department near a supermarket and at a roundabout.
Poultry farmers in France have for several months complained of rock-bottom egg prices due to overproduction -- a problem that also affects other countries in the European Union.
They say current prices do not make up for a rise in production costs or investments they had to make as part of an EU directive that came into force in January 2012 to protect the well-being of laying hens.
The nebulous collective, which communicates through an unnamed spokesman, has pledged to smash 100,000 eggs in public places every day until the government meets its demands for measures to be taken to raise prices.
On Wednesday evening, the farmers went to the town of Carhaix in Brittany in France's northwest and hurled pallets full of eggs from a truck on to the road in front of the tax office.
The previous night, they had destroyed 100,000 eggs in the neighbouring Cotes d'Armor department near a supermarket and at a roundabout.
Poultry farmers in France have for several months complained of rock-bottom egg prices due to overproduction -- a problem that also affects other countries in the European Union.
They say current prices do not make up for a rise in production costs or investments they had to make as part of an EU directive that came into force in January 2012 to protect the well-being of laying hens.
www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/french-farmers-on-fresh-egg-breaking-rampage_271401.html
Problems like this seem to be a regular occurrence with French farmers. They seem to expect everything handed to them on a plate, and the EU's CAP has always been run largely for their benefit. On the other hand, there are issues with the supermarkets operating effectively as a cartel, forcing prices of certain things down to unrealistic and unsustainable levels on the basis of their level of control of the market (with producers having no choice but to sell to them at the prices they offer, otherwise they won't be able to sell at all) - that issue is also having a catastrophic effect on dairy farmers in the UK. There is clearly a problem somewhere in the way that the market is operating, if most of the producers are actually having to sell at a loss, but unfortunately the French farmers have 'cried wolf' so many times with their protests that another one is hardly likely to cause huge waves!
