Farmers face fresh issues and planning will be key

While the retiring generation of farmers lament decades of constraining quotas, time will tell if the optimism of the new generation is justified or if they will lament the loss of certainty, writes Michael Brady

WE LIKE to remember and celebrate significant events in our lifetimes especially when it marks the end of an era and the commencement of another. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Ireland entering the European Union in 1973 and joining the euro in 2002 are all such events.

Yesterday, March 31, marked the end of the EU milk quota regime, and this will be a very significant date in the lifetime of the next generation of Irish and European dairy farmers.