The milk road: some proposals and reflections from a life-long career

Andre Pflimlin started off as the son of a small farmer in southern Alsace and ended up as an engineer at the French Livestock Institute. Over the course of his long career and as the result of numerous influential projects, he has formed a variety of opinions about the European dairy industry and the policies that should be implemented. Encounters with dairy farmers using self-sufficient grassland systems were particularly important. However, such systems are in decline, despite their positive economic and environmental outcomes and despite research demonstrating their functionality and resilience. The abolition of milk quotas has worsened the situation by reviving two problematic practices: increased agricultural intensification that comes at the expense of grasslands and overinvestment by dairies in the production of powdered milk for export. These practices are a dead end both in the short term, given the global market, and in the long term, given the COP21 resolutions. However, it is not too late to establish a more sustainable, united, and democractic European dairy industry.