Dairy summit to decide priorities for EU market supports

A DAIRY industry summit is to be held in the Horse and Jockey, Co Tipperary, on Thursday, February 19, to decide the priorities for Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith to pursue in Brussels in order to secure urgent European Union market supports.

Irish Farmers Association president Padraig Walshe, who has called the summit, said he had invited the leaders of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, Macra na Feirme and the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society to join with industry leaders, including the chairmen and chief executives of the Irish Dairy Board and all the co-ops.

He said he had decided to call the summit after Irish Dairy Board chief executive Noel Coakley told an IFA regional milk price meeting in Kilkenny on Tuesday night that a further €300/t in export refunds is necessary for skimmed milk powder to maintain prices.

He said Mr Coakley also told the meeting the butter intervention quota of 30,000 tonnes would be filled in the first 10 days of March.

Mr Walshe said he wanted the full industry, including the Irish Dairy Board and the co-ops, behind proposals to go to Mr Smith for immediate action in Brussels.

Meanwhile, European Union Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said yesterday that last month’s European Commission decision to reintroduce export refunds for dairy products was a temporary measure.

It was in response to a genuine market crisis and does not represent a return to the “bad old days” of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) protectionism, as some have suggested, she explained in her internet blog.

“It is not a decision that was taken lightly. My political instinct is to be very prudent about using export refunds.

“But faced with a situation of genuine market crisis, where the prices paid to some of our milk producers have fallen dramatically over recent months, we felt it was time to act,” she said.

Ms Fischer Boel said it was clear to her that unless action was taken thousands of small-scale milk farmers would go out of business in the EU.

“Once this happens, there will be no way back for many of them. The effects of this would go well beyond simply putting an end to the businesses directly affected.