ICMSA warns over hefty cost of plans to expand milk production

ANY mooted plans for expanded milk production must be viewed sceptically unless they are based on cold hard facts and involve better income for dairy farmers.

Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association president Jackie Cahill, who issued the warning, said the ability at farm level to produce extra milk is not in question. “The much more important question was what markets were going to take the extra product, and how much of that export revenue would find its way back to the milk suppliers who were the foundation stones of the whole dairy sector edifice.”

He said the ICMSA has commissioned a report from Professor Michael Keane to estimate the likely cost of expansion.