Dairy industry ‘needs funding’

INCREASED spending on research and development and re-investment are necessary to address the competitiveness issues identified in the latest dairy industry study.

But too great a focus is being placed on short-term returns by the farming organisations and this was restricting the industry’s potential.

Those are the views of IBEC’s Irish Dairy Industry Association, which welcomed the Prospectus Promar study published this week. Commissioned by the Department of Agriculture and Food and Enterprise Ireland, with the industry, the report calls for radical changes to meet future challenges including major rationalisation.