Israel Dairy Board halts raw milk supplies amid reform push

ISRAEL – The Israel Dairy Board, which regulates the dairy industry, has announced that it will henceforth stop providing raw milk to the companies that process milk and make dairy products.

Hebrew media reports said some supermarkets had begun limiting how much milk customers could buy.

The ministry wants to dismantle the central planning system of quotas, fixed prices for farmers, and protectionist tariffs, and open the market up to imports. It says this will help bring down prices and the cost of living.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich plans to slash milk production in Israel by a third, cut the price per liter by 15 percent, and abolish tariffs of up to 40% to flood the Israeli market with imported dairy products. The government approved his plan in December.

“As long as the dairy industry is run like a communist one, such threats sound serious. [When there is] real competition, they will be a joke. Until the reform is passed, the joke is at the expense of the welfare of Israeli citizens. And it’s not funny,” Smotrich posted on X.

The farmers say this will endanger jobs and Israel’s food security, and point out that prices will not go down as long as no action is taken against the monopolies that control manufacturing, retail and imports.

Amit Ifrach, secretary-general of the Moshav Movement and chairman of the Israel Farmers’ Association, welcomed a recommendation by the Knesset’s legal adviser, Sagit Afik, to remove the dairy reform proposal from the Economic Arrangements Bill.

Ifrach said the dairy reform was a “profound” one with “significant implications for the future of the dairy industry, agriculture, settlement, and the entire rural area.” It was not, he insisted, a budgetary measure that could be “passed in a hurry.”

Dairy prices have long been a flashpoint in Israel, with spikes often touching off public anger and even mass protests amid the country’s high cost of living — an issue that has consistently ranked among voters’ top concerns in recent elections.

Raw milk producers blame the handful of milk product manufacturers, such as Tnuva and Strauss, for the high prices.

Outside of Israel, Canada is the main country that still operates a similar supply management system for milk, including state pricing, quotas, and import tariffs.

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