Farmers from the association My Moldova are asking subsidies for milk. They told a news conference today the high costs involved compared to the low price offered makes their businesses unprofitable. The farmers say they are forced to sell almost three times lower than the price of milk in stores on the insistence of the milk processing factories, Info-Prim Neo reports. Andrei Lungu, dairy farmer from the village of Sarata-Mileseni, Hancesti district, says he owns 25 cows which produce 400 liters of milk a day. The farmer sells the milk for 2.75 lei a liter, a price which he says is imposed by the company JLC, one of the major companies in Moldova's dairy industry. “Until March 2009 the offered price was 4 lei, but then the company imposed a price of 2.75 lei without giving any reason. Last December we went to the director in an attempt to negotiate a better price, but we were shown the door”, says he. The farmer explained that selling his merchandise to the schools and kindergartens was uneconomic. “I cannot work with these institutions because I would spend two or three hours on the road for them to buy only 25 liters a day. To us, it's more easy to give all the milk to the factory. Shame is we don't agree with the price, but at the factory they tell us to go and complain to the government”, Lungu says. Having taken out a 250,000 lei loan from the bank for equipment purchases last year, Andrei Lungu, like many other diary farmers, is concerned about the future of his business. “If the government does not give us subventions until spring, I'll slaughter all my cattle”, the farmer complained. The farmers suggest that the price of one liter of milk should be no smaller than 4 lei for them to survive.