Co-ops laud superlevy aid

ICOS has praised Dairygold Co-op for being the first in Europe to come up with a scheme to ease superlevy shocks for farmers.

In the middle of last year, as dairy markets began to weaken, Dairygold Co-op said they would help pay the superlevy in 2015, and allow penalised members pay them back in instalments, to cushion them from a “perfect storm” of falling prices, the Russian ban, world dairy oversupply, a big tax bill on 2014 profits, and capital investment around quota abolition.

The phased super levy payment scheme allows Dairygold milk suppliers to spread superlevy bills over an extended period to September 2016, said the co-op’s chief executive, Jim Woulfe.

Ireland is among eight countries whose collective superlevy fines are likely to exceed €410m. Ireland’s fine could exceed €100m.

“From an ICOS perspective, while the Dairygold action was welcomed and yet another clear example of the co-operative ethos at work, we felt that such a solution could be given a proper EU dimension,” said a spokesman for the co-ops organisation.

ICOS suggests that the European Commission collect the full superlevy but help spread the burden of payments over a longer period, to help farmers hit by geopolitical problems not of their making — such as the Russian ban on EU dairy produce.

“Making co-ops carry the financial strain of spreading the bill only weakens these farmer owned businesses.

“And using national governments to pay the bill is an obvious state aid contravention.”