Dispute between Kerry Dairies and milk producers set to escalate
Producers vented their anger for nearly two hours at a meeting of the Kerry Dairies Shareholders at Limerick last week-end, when the on-going dispute took up most of the meeting with challenging questions and demands being tabled by the farmers towards the society officials attending the meeting. The producers are contesting the proposed reduced in milk price, which they claim will cost them an average of 10-13 cents per gallon, while the cost of production continues to increase.
Kerry Dairies have told the farmers that they are being forced to reduce the cost of milk, because of the competition in the market place for liquid milk, from lower price competitions who are taking over an increasing share of the liquid market. Donal Kelliher, chairman IFA National Liquid Milk Committee said that the anger among producers has now reached a point where the level of protest will escalate “because we simply cannot take that cuts that are being proposed by the group and that message must now have got through to the society“. Prior to the shareholders meeting about 150 Kerry Liquid Milk suppliers attended a meeting of IFA at Limerick which was addressed by IFA leader, John Dillon.
Mr Dillon said that he believed that Kerry do not care about its liquid milk suppliers and were trying to get a market advantaged at the expense of its producer’s livelihoods. “This could have extremely serious consequences for liquid milk suppliers all over Ireland and IFA will stand firm to defend the livelihoods of liquid milk producers“, Mr Dillon said.
He urged Kerry supplier shareholders to show Kerry management that they mean business and to reject out of hand then new system at the shareholders meeting which was to follow. The protest is planned to four locations this weekend and the farmers have confirmed they are prepared to escalate the protest over the coming weeks if they do not get a reversal of the proposed cuts from Kerry Group.
