Trebling dairy premium would save smaller farmers
“Our main proposal is to put a floor under the price of the first 40,000 gallons of milk produced by every dairy farmer,” said NMRG chairman Donie Shine.
He said this could be achieved by trebling the 1.2 cent per litre (5.5 cent per gallon) 2004 Dairy Premium Scheme, which became a decoupled payment in 2005. The NMRG proposal would be worth about €20,000 per farmer. Similar support should be paid for the first 40 suckler cows, said Shine.
He said more than one third of farmers have dropped out of small- to medium-scale milk production in the last decade, leaving only 16,000 active dairy farmers, plus 2,000 non-active, leasing out their quotas.
These farmers have very low single farm payments — although the average dairy farmer gets one third of his income from single farm payments, according to IFA.
“It is much cheaper and easier to maintain existing farmers than support farmers starting up,” said Shine.
“We think it worthy to support young farmers and new entrants but we feel that it should not be done at the expense of existing farmers.”
“We think that the 30% greening is a good idea for Ireland as it suits the Irish farming system of family farming which Minister Coveney and the EU are very anxious to maintain.”
