AFRO-NETS> Swiss Milk Crisis

[Graham White <GrahamBWhite@CompuServe.COM>]

Swiss Milk Crisis
-----------------

Dear AFRO-NETTERS,

I've had a sleepless night worrying about how to make a material link 
between two of the lead stories on "World Radio Geneva" news yester-
day. Among the international topics, they reported the latest fore-
casts of the scale of famine predicted for Africa, tens of millions 
of people facing starvation from regional crop failures in southern 
Africa, West Africa and the Horn of Africa, with World Food Programme 
warnings that far more resources are needed to cope with the unprece-
dented scale of the shortages. 

Top of the Swiss news was the "crisis" facing Swiss milk producers. 
Apparently Swiss milk prices are way above those from subsidized 
farmers in the European Community, so Swiss exports of dairy products 
to Europe have plummeted. In order to uphold prices for milk and 
cheese, the Federation of Swiss Milk Producers proposed to cut pro-
duction by two percent, amounting to 60,000 tonnes of milk. However 
the main Union objects that this is insufficient to keep up the 
value, so they propose a cut of 4.5 percent. 

Does anyone out there know if/how the Swiss milk surplus can be use-
ful to the World Food Programme without spoiling the fortunes of 
Swiss farmers? I wonder if UHT milk (rather than controversial milk 
powder) could help alleviate the misfortunes of Africa? Ironically, 
the reciprocal problem for Swiss chocolate manufacturers is that co-
coa prices are soaring on global markets due to uncertainty over this 
season's production in Côte d'Ivoire. 

Graham White
mailto:GrahamBWhite@compuserve.com

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