By Jonny Dymond
BBC News, Brussels
**Agriculture and farming ministers from across Europe are to gather in Brussels for a special meeting on what some call a crisis in dairy production.**For weeks now farmers around the EU have been dumping milk stocks and withholding supplies.
They are protesting against what they say are uneconomic prices for milk.
There is a pretty simple problem in the European milk market: there is a lot of supply and not enough demand, and prices have fallen.
Farmers are at the sharp end of this problem and have seen their sale price tumble.
In the last few weeks European farmers have dumped millions of gallons of milk and withheld supplies in protest.
The French and German governments would like to see the EU stepping back from the gradual liberalisation of the milk market - and instead increase export subsidies and reduce quotas to bring down supply.
The British government is not keen to go down this path.
The meeting will not take any decisions - they might come in two weeks’ time.
But farmers have for the moment suspended a supply boycott that threatened supermarket stocks.