Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 17 ISSUE 2
Written by Agatha POPESCU

The paper aimed to analyze the main trends in milk market and the impact of milk crisis in Romania. The empirical data were provided by the National Institute of Statistics for the period 2007-2015, and have been statistically processed by common used methods to identify the main trends. While cattle livestock decreased, sheep and goat livestock increased, as consequence of the high price for farm inputs and the low milk price at farm gate for dairy farmers. The whole milk production declined by 15 %, cow milk production by 21.3 %, sheep and goat milk increased by 83.5 %. Due to the lack of raw milk, processors were obliged to buy raw milk from other countries. Romanian producers received a low milk price at farm gate, meaning losses and efforts to produce more milk to maintain income level, and to sell milk in Bulgaria. Traders did not react to the decline of produce's milk price. The whole EU was affected by milk and dairy products overproduction, and low milk price, which caused deep disappointments and damages to milk producers. The weak connection between producers-processors-traders and consumers along milk chain have allowed milk crisis to leave deep traces and claimed a change in milk market policy regarding more equitable measures and tools for milk producers, taking into account the expenses for production factors as well as consumer price, in order to avoid production concentration and to assure a balanced distribution of value added along milk chain. The strong competition among farms, oblige farmers to pay more attention to knowledge, training level, modern technologies, and farm management, factors which could keep production cost at a low level, assure a high milk quality, and economic efficiency.

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