Continental dairy farmer leaders oppose Irish plans
Speaking at the ICMSA-hosted European Milk Board (EMB) dairy conference in Dublin last week, German dairy farmer Alice Endres, a regional representative of the German dairy farmer federation, BDM, said her farmers “don’t love the idea” of Irish expansion.
“We already have enough milk for our own market in Germany. I cannot believe that the farmers in Ireland are looking to expand right now.
“There will be expansion in the coming years which will make the price fall again. There will be an expansion in the volume but it will bring down the price fast. In Germany, we are only going to produce what is demanded by the consumer. We have high level quality and cost.
“I would be interested in expanding at a high quality level, but it is nonsense to produce extra high quality milk and then dump it on the world market. It would bring the price down. Would you sell a Mercedes to China for a lower cost? It makes no sense.”
Alice Endres has 80 cows on a family farm in Rheinland-Pfalz, which borders northern France and Belgium. She is paid 30c a litre, but her production costs come to 39c. She receives a 1.5% volume bonus payment and a 1.5c state production bonus. BDM recently estimated German production costs at 38-45cpl. Alice and the other EMB members were in Dublin to discuss plans for an EU-wide monitoring agency which would bring farmers, processors and consumers under an umbrella body that would pressurise governments and retailers to give farmers a fairer share of the retail price of milk. The plans were outlined in depth by EMB president Romuald Schaber, vice-president Sieta van Keimpema, and ICMSA president Jackie Cahill.
“We were here two days and we visited three Irish farms,” said Alice Endres. “I was shocked by the farms. The sheds had holes in the roofs, the windows were broken. They didn’t look like they were investing for expansion. Those barns didn’t look like the right environment to put more and more cows into them.
“I cannot believe that farmers in Ireland are looking to expand. That is a game that the dairies are playing on price. We farmers must work together to stop undermining each other on price, and effectively keeping the overall level down.
“I don’t understand why there is a rush to have more production if the price is not fitting. No average non-farming person would do two jobs if they would get the same money for doing one job. With expansion, farmers would be living to work, not working to live.”
