ICMSA: Every option must be used to support dairy market

Commenting on reports that the March 14 Farm Council meeting will see the French government proposing possible supply-side restrictions aimed at boosting dairy prices, ICMSA president John Comer said that the starting position in the EU dairy debate had to be the realisation that milk quotas have been abolished “and will not be coming back”.

Mr Comer said that farmers across the EU have invested in facilities to increase their herd size and it was simply not tenable to tell them to stop now or, indeed, reverse a process into which years of planning and investment had been sunk.

None of this, he said, was to detract from the scale of the crisis and the need for all and every other tool to be used to support the dairy market.