How EU member states can help dairy farmers

NUMEROUS ways that member states can help dairy farmers were described in the European Commission’s latest analysis of the sector.

Member states can spend up to 10% of the single farm payment on restructuring or development – in addition to the €5 billion a year (worth around 3.5c/litre) decoupled direct payment, which is the EU’s main policy tool since 2003 for supporting dairy farmers’ incomes.

“Dairy restructuring” has also been identified as one of the areas for which €4.2 billion has been allocated in the health check and recovery package.