Quotas stopped farmers from bridging the gap
That was one of the findings of the EU market outlook report which led to recent proposals to boost milk quotas by 2% next April. It was estimated that, up to 2014, an extra 8m tonnes of milk will be needed to meet EU demand, primarily for cheese production.
The outlook for the world market is also positive, resulting in growing export demand for EU dairy foods.
Leaving quotas unchanged would prevent the EU from exploiting rising demand and high prices, said the European Commission. And more and more dairy manufacturers would continue to face higher raw material prices. “In the coming years, demand for high value-added dairy products — particularly cheese — will continue to rise both within Europe and around the world. We need to equip our farmers to meet that increased demand,” said EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.
Many dairy industry sources say the commission appears to favour increasing quota volumes across Europe gradually so that they eventually become irrelevant, by the time they are scrapped in 2015. In December, EU farm ministers called for a bigger April increase in milk quotas than the 2% suggested by Commissioner Fischer Boel.
The Italians wanted 4%, the Dutch 3%, and Poland, Romania and Latvia also called for more than 2%. Full discussion is expected in the farm ministers’ council on January 21 and 22, probably leading to a decision in February, once the European parliament has delivered its opinion. A milk quota increase of 0.5% is already in the pipeline as part of the 2003 CAP reform for a number of member states, not including Ireland.
