Summary of newsmakers of the previous day – 2.4.2007

Government will screen Budvar

Budějovice Budvar, which the government wants privatize still in this election period or to prepare for sale, will pass through a deep check. The Premier Mirek Topolánek in cooperation with the MInister of Agriculture Peter Gandalovič want to verify a suspicion whether this firm haven´t closed some disadvantageous contracts, for example with its feudal American rival Anheuser-Bush.

Climatic changes will change taste of beer

To grow up quality barley is still more difficult with current weather variances; maltsters look for new crop-plants. Czech beer could have a bit different taste in several years than to what domestic beer drinkers are used. Owing to worsening climatic conditions it is possible that beer will be cooked not only from barley but for example also from chickpea, as the Czech biotechnology portal www.gate2biotech.cz has found out.

Successful protest of German farmers against action of cheap prices

A protest action of farmer producing milk from Schlesvick-Holstein in front of and inside the Penny Market in Rendsburg, which offered a liter of full-cream milk for 0,39 EUR and a pot of cream for 0,25 EUR, was successful. As the German farmer association (Deutsche Bauernverband - DBV) informed, a relevant manager of Penny Market promised already during the protest that a price in advertisement of the offered full-cream milk will be increased again in the entire North immediatelly to a normal price 0,55 EUR (c. 15,50 CZK) for a liter.

We feel useless, farmers complain

“We start to be useless in our own country. Import replaces domestic production. Our nervousness strengthens” Jan Veleba, the president of Agrarian Chamber, said yesterday at a congress of this key professional organization of farmers. Will farmers´ protests which started on Monday in border crossing with Austria in Dolní Dvořiště continue? “We have fulfilled the aim in borders. Now it is time to act,” Veleba moderated its critics. Also last year´s results of the branch evidence that there is no threat of collapse in fact: agriculture achieved a significant profit for the third time in sequence, over seven billion crowns. Record subsidies exceeded 27 billion.

Source: Agris, 3.4.2007