Following days of protests by farmers across the border in France, Belgian dairy producers launched their own demonstration on Thursday (July 24) at the opening of the country’s Libramont agricultural fair.

At issue, the rapid drop in milk prices.

“The problem is that the price of milk is around 25 cents,” dairy farmer Maxime Tasiaux told euronews. “It might even reach 20 cents. This is not profitable. We need a price around 35 to 40 cents to break even. We are losing money, we cannot repay loans, we don’t know what to do.”

An EU milk quota that kept the lid on production for more than 30 years, was lifted in April, opening the market to cheap surplus milk.

At the same time, farmers have lost many subsidies and are also facing a Russian embargo on EU produce.

While the change allows farmers to compete for large markets such as China and South Korea, small farmers say they can’t survive the market volatility.

Reporting from Libramont, euronews correspondent Loic Verheyen