Dairy farms in straitjackets
Speaker after speaker emphasised the need for larger dairy farms. But they can expand only if small dairy farms disappear, and free up quota.
There are fewer and fewer farmers left from the era when a few cows kept hundreds of thousands of small farms in existence; efficiency and competitiveness are now the objectives, rather than the maximum number on the land.
The conference heard that other countries are using scale and technology to achieve the low costs of milk production which the Irish climate and use of grass allow. The ultimate result of that trend is Irish dairy products becoming less competitive.
Lower milk prices and rising bills are forcing Irish dairy farmers to expand or tighten their belts. About 6,000 of them are estimated to be teetering on the edge of viability, wondering if they would be better off selling the 10% of the national milk quota which they hold.
Higher up the scale, large dairy farmers have their own dilemmas expand and become more efficient, but at the risk of becoming over-indebted due to the high cost of land and milk quota.
It is no wonder that Minister Walsh has postponed his decision on how to proceed with the Milk Quota Restructuring Scheme one of the main existing ways of allowing farmers expand or contract within our rigid milk quota system.
He has said he will base his dairy policy approach on the necessity to protect farmer incomes. If so, something must be done about the straitjacket of quotas.
It is clear to farmers and agri-policy experts many of whom have spoken out on this issue that Ireland's current quota system locks small-scale dairy farms into place, and prevents bigger farms from going to the new levels of milk production efficiency needed for a competitive dairy industry, from farm to export market.
Denmark was put forward as the example to follow, at the dairy conference. They replaced our kind of quota system with a market based quota exchange.
This allows quota supply and demand trends to set a market price for quota.
This gave struggling farmers have the choice to struggle on, or sell out at a " genuine" price.
Now is the time for a quota exchange in Ireland, to replace the current system which evolved from trying to please everyone.
As some farmers have pointed out, keeping as many people as possible in agricultural production is now a futile objective.
In fact, it is no longer part of the European model of agriculture. Like Ireland's quota policy, it has a little for everyone, but no longer aims to keep the maximum numbers in farming.
Sustainable but modern and competitive farming, becoming a leader on world markets, while safeguarding EU farm living standards and income, is the new EU aim an impossible aim in the long term for Irish farmers hogtied by milk quotas.
