ICMSA ups bid for immediate and substantial milk price increase

KERRY GROUP chief executive Stan McCarthy can expect a bulging post bag over the next few days as part of a milk price campaign by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA).

The ICMSA announced that it is mailing 2,400 postcards to Mr McCarthy in a tactic organised by its Kerry executive.

William Dennehy, the ICMSA chairman in Kerry, has instructed the association’s head office in Limerick to issue pre-paid postcards to every single milk supplier in the Kerry Group in an effort to reinforce farmers’ claim to an immediate and substantial milk price rise.

Mr Dennehy said it had to be emphasised to Kerry Group exactly how precarious the situation for its milk suppliers had become.

“ICMSA has calculated that our costs have risen by the equivalent of five cents per litre while our milk price has fallen by seven cents per litre.

“A minute’s reflection should tell anyone that it’s simply not possible to go on in that scenario.

“It simply destroys our incomes and moves a situation closer where we will see large numbers just exiting milk production altogether,” he said.

IFA members from Kerry, Limerick, Clare and North Cork will protest at the Kerry Group headquarters in Tralee on Monday to express their dissatisfaction at what they say is the company’s failure to lift its June and July milk price and its slippage down the milk price league in recent years.

Derek Deane, IFA deputy president, said Kerry must immediately pay an extra 2c/l for July milk, and commit to pay a leading milk price for the rest of 2008 and the future.

IFA dairy committee chairman Richard Kennedy said farmers are faced with massive cost increases threatening their profitability, which they are in no position to pass back.