Italian farmers brought to heel

Italy's dairy farmers have spent the last few months driving tractors on to railway tracks and dragging cows behind them on noisy protests outside government offices. Their complaint: the heartlessness of a government that for years allowed them to flout production quotas imposed by the European Union but has now decided they have to stick to the rules.

Yesterday, though, it seemed they had finally lost their battle. After months of wavering, the government decided to go ahead with its threat to get tough and pushed a special decree through Parliament. The decision was made considerably easier by a government report, published earlier this week, which revealed that a staggering 90 per cent of the country's 110,000 dairy farmers were violating some rule or another and, in some cases, were committing flagrant fraud.

There was the cowshed containing 1,500 cattle registered as being located in a penthouse apartment overlooking Piazza Navona in the centre of Rome. Or the super-cow that produced 10 tonnes of milk in a year. Farmers who have sought to diddle the system in these ways are likely to have their production quota reduced to zero or at least be forced to pay a heavy fine.

The dairy farmers were out protesting again yesterday morning, but it was clear the bite had gone out of the struggle. "We are not the cheats, we are the ones being cheated!" went their new, less than convincing slogan.

Roberto Baldini, a farmers' leader from Modena, sought to explain away the government report in two conflicting ways. First, he insisted that none of the dishonest farmers were among his fellow protesters. But then he added: "Those contracts are awfully complicated, and after all we're only dairy farmers. We don't know anything about laws and regulations."

The Italian milk saga stretches back to 1982, when the government first fell out with the European Community about quotas it felt could damage its agricultural sector. Italy decided to set its own quotas unilaterally, and the government chose to pay the fines its farmers incurred as a result of their overproduction.