Eye to eye on volatility issue

Feedback from people who attended Monday’s CIT seminar on future milk price volatility management mechanisms was broadly positive, both from farmers and from the event’s organisers.

Most people realise that the Ireland would be an infinitely more attractive location for the world’s big producers of infant formula and other dairy products if they knew they could fix a price per litre at the outset of each year.

They would also be more likely to bring their considerable resources here if they knew they could rely upon a guaranteed annual volume of milk, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t have to barter over price on a daily basis with dairy farmers’ representative groups.