Anxious German consumers struggled to stock up with milk yesterday amid fears of a shortage. Down on the farm, meanwhile, farmers could be seen pouring milk, fresh from the udder, into drains, or feeding it to calves.

“I would rather throw my milk away than give it away,” said Christine Schneebichler, a Bavarian dairy farmer. Thousands of German farmers apparently agree: they are stopping deliveries until the milk price reaches 40 cents a litre, compared with between 27 and 35 cents offered by dairies. The fall in dairy prices is doubly painful for farmers because as oil prices soar, the cost of fuel and fertiliser is rising fast.

The strike in Europe's biggest milk-consuming society is having a knock-on effect across Europe. IG Milch, the Austrian dairy association, has called on farmers to cut deliveries by half to protest against low milk prices.

“We are predicting that shelves will empty quickly as people begin hoarding following this determined action in Germany and elsewhere in Europe,” Ewald Grünzweil, chairman of IG Milch, said. He urged hospitals, kindergartens and schools to build up reserves and deposit the milk in freezers, saying that the strike was likely to be a long one.

The Dutch Dairymen Board is telling its 4,000 members to keep milk on the farm and there are protests in Belgium, Luxembourg and France.

In Zurich, many shops were without milk. For the Swiss and the Austrians the move is more than an act of solidarity with the Germans - the calculation is that a milk strike could seriously embarrass their governments in the run-up to next month's European football championship, which is being staged in both countries.

Mooing mountainside dairy cows, with bells tinkling around their necks, have become part of the accepted tourist image of both countries. Now farmers are pasting stickers proclaiming “Fair Milk!” on to the tourist posters.

Horst Seehofer, the German Agriculture Minister, perhaps mindful of his Bavarian voters, has come out in support of the farmers. Yesterday, he attacked the EU decision to again raise milk production quotas.

“Dairy farmers need a price which allows them to live,” Mr Seehofer said. “I support their goal.” It is unclear though, whether he, and the rest of the Government, backs the fundamental demand of the farmers to conduct yearly price negotiations with dairies. The Association of German Milk Producers has said that milk output will be scaled down to nothing until this demand is met.

A spokesman for the association said: “We plan to decrease the flow to the food industry further still in coming days and then the supermarkets will start feeling the pinch.”

Supermarket chains are blamed for forcing down prices by as much as 15 cents a litre over the past eight months in an attempt to attract new customers. Last year, on the other hand, the Chinese demand for milk was blamed for high prices.

But neither customers nor the media were convinced yesterday of the justice of the farmers' cause.

As he was leaving a branch of the Mema supermarket chain in Berlin, Stefan Brinkmann, a civil engineer, said: “We're all suffering from the effect of higher fuel prices, not just the farmers. What kind of image does this project to the rest of the world where food is really running short?”

There were three litres of milk in his trolley. “My daughter likes her shakes,” he explained apologetically.

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