IFA rejects proposal to manage milk quotas at individual producer level

SUGGESTIONS from French and German ministers that milk quotas should be managed at individual producer level on a compulsory basis in every member state was described as totally unacceptable yesterday by the Irish Farmers Association.

President Padraig Walshe said it is a fundamentally retrograde step in the run-up to quota abolition. It would sacrifice European farmers’ production capacity and make room for world competitors’ increased production, without any guaranteed positive effect on milk prices.

“Irish dairy farmers, who operate in a very open market, simply reject this proposal out of hand,” said Mr Walshe, who met with EU agriculture and rural development commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel ahead of a Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels.