Targeted supports from EU for butter market urgently needed, says IFA
IFA president Padraig Walshe said the IFA had been in contact with senior European Commission officials to emphasise the need for targeted, short-term market supports in the butter sector.
He said exceptional measures, particularly adequate levels of export refunds, were critical to help re-balance dairy markets and support prices this spring.
Mr Walshe urged Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith and his officials to pursue this issue as a priority.
“The current extreme volatility of markets is a result of the global economic slowdown. There is an onus on the commission to provide the necessary exceptional supports required to help re-balance dairy markets and support milk prices,” he said.
Mr Walshe said dairy farmers knew that, at the average milk price of 30c/l in 2008, there were no fortunes made milking cows.
He said any price cuts over last year would damage the long-term confidence in the industry.
He said, to help re-balance dairy markets, and to provide the support required for milk prices, strategic use had to be made “of at least some of the market support measures that remain legally available”.
“Chiefly among those, properly targeted export refunds have a very important part to play,” he said.
Mr Walshe said the commission must understand that in the run-up to quota abolition, it cannot abruptly and totally disengage from providing transitional market supports to help provide the “soft landing” Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has been talking about.
Macra na Feirme president Catherine Buckley has, meanwhile, called for one quarter of the 1% milk quota increase for 2009 to be targeted at attracting new entrants to the industry.
She said this was “a golden opportunity to effect change in the industry”.
She said a quarter of 1% was a small amount of milk quota but, targeted effectively, would greatly benefit the industry.
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