Sardinia: shepherds take to the streets again – from ‘low’ milk prices to ‘high’ energy and feed costs

Sardinian shepherds are taking to the streets once again. Because with milk at 1.40 euros a litre, ‘we’re operating at a loss’ and the sector continues to grapple with the crisis. The rally is taking place in Cagliari, outside the Regional Council building. The protest was announced and organised following the meeting on 2 October and was then publicised via social media by the protest coordinators Mario Carai, Gianuario Falchi, Fabio Pisu and Nenneddu Sanna, outside the Regional Council building.

Let’s all take to the streets so that ‘those who govern us down in Cagliari will be compelled to take the burden and difficulties facing our sector seriously’.

One of the priorities set out by the Sardinian ‘flagless’ shepherds’ movement is to review the price of milk, raising it from the current 1.40 per litre to at least 1.50; otherwise, as Gianuario Falchi emphasised during the demonstration, ‘we are working at a loss’. Their demands extend beyond the price of milk to include the cost increases that the entire sector is having to contend with – from electricity and fuel prices right through to the cost of animal feed.

It is no coincidence that farmers describe the situation as ‘worse than in 2019, when a quintal of feed cost 25–30 euros, compared with 55 euros today, fertiliser at 35 euros and now 120, and agricultural diesel has risen from 50 cents per litre seven years ago to 1.70 today’.

According to Fabio Pisu, one of the spokespeople, ‘we need to start thinking about finding a practical solution to the ban on the movement of cattle, which is causing major difficulties for farms’. This is also because, as the movement’s representatives have pointed out, ‘the sector provides around 100,000 jobs’.