Dairy farmers yesterday blocked cheese factories in France and staged demonstrations in Germany and Belgium in a campaign for a return to fixed prices, regulation and subsidies.

With the price of milk falling by 30 per cent in the past year, farmers stepped up pressure on the European Union’s agriculture ministers to reinstate policies that resulted in €16 billion (£14 billion) of aid a year for the Continent’s dairy industry.

As the ministers met in Brussels, more than 1,000 producers gathered in the city in a noisy demonstration against liberalisation of the sector. About 6,000 demonstrated in Berlin.

In France, cheese shortages loomed as 12,000 farmers blockaded 81 dairy plants across the country. A spokeswoman for Bongrain, one of France’s biggest cheesemakers, said that her countrymen could be deprived of their favourite fromages if the protests continued, But she added: “We eat 25 kilos each every year, so a few grammes less won’t be too difficult to handle.”

Farmers want the dairy industry to guarantee a minimum milk price of €300 a tonne — against €210 this month — and more help from Brussels.

Max Bottier, a dairy farmer in Normandy who has already led blockades of factories owned by Danone, the French food group, said: “I need €300 a tonne to break even and more if I am going to make any money.”

Jean-Claude Houi, a dairy farmer in western France, said: “They should tell us whether they want our death now. At least we won’t set up our children in business without a future.”

Vincent Chatelier, an economist at the French National Institute of Agronomic Research, said: “Milk producers are going through their first price fall. As they were used to stable prices, they are not at all organised.” Erwin Schoepges, a Belgian representative of the European Milk Board, said: “A lot of producers can’t hold out with these milk prices. Morale is very low.”

Luc Chatel, a French government spokesman, said: “We need to ensure that producers can live on what they earn and that industrial groups remain competitive.” His Government joined ministers in Germany and Austria in a call for a rise in cheese export subsidies and more EU intervention to prop up the milk price.

The EU is already backtracking on a plan to expose Europe’s dairy industry to market forces. It has pledged to buy 30,000 tonnes of butter and 109,000 tonnes of skimmed milk powder in a return to the policy that produced butter mountains and milk lakes.

Officials have also brought back export subsidies two years after they were ended and promised €1.5 billion emergency help for dairy farmers. In Berlin, as farmers drove lines of tractors through the city, the German Government said it would cut taxes on agricultural diesel, meeting a key demand of the German Farmers’ Association.

Last night, the European Commission announced measures to support the dairy industry, with 70 per cent of next year’s subsidies to be paid this year and an extension of butter stocks. But it ruled out a U-turn on milk quotas, which are due to be phased out by 2015 amid moves to curb the €50 billion-a-year Common Agricultural Policy.

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