As Parliament adopted its report on the Commission's proposed reform of the dairy market, on 5 September 2007, the House's Socialist Group expressed concern over the current milk shortage and criticised Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel for not having anticipated it.
"This shortage has already had and will have an important effect on the price of milk, and adds to the increase in prices of other basic foodstuffs such as cereals, animal feed and meat," said Socialist MEP Rosa Miguélez Ramos. The increase in world demand and decrease in supply "should have been anticipated by the commissioner".
On her blog, Commissioner Fischer Boel recently commented on the increases in dairy and wheat prices: "Recent price developments are no more and no less than the market in action, which is precisely what we want from European agriculture in 2007."
However, keeping one eye on the effect on consumers, she said that retailers should play their part, because "as we all know, the contribution of the raw material to the final price of foods such as bread is relatively small, so I hope that the supermarkets and discounters will act responsibly".
According to the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2007-2016, published in July 2007, "temporary factors such as droughts in wheat-growing regions and low stocks explain in large measure the recent hikes in farm commodity prices".
In addition, the report states that "increased demand for biofuels is causing fundamental changes to agricultural markets and could drive up world prices for many farm products", whereas Commissioner Fischer Boel argues that increase in interest in biofuels plays only "a marginal role at most in the EU context".
