Stephen Cadogan: Phil Hogan urged to keep price promise on produce margins

ICMSA has put pressure on the European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, Phil Hogan, to live up to his promises to level the playing pitch for farmers, versus what the dairy farmers’ organisation calls “margin-grabbing” retailers.

ICMSA president John Comer said he feared the Commissioner must have been confronted by the overwhelming powers and lobbying of the food retail corporations, and has been converted to the fantasy that voluntary codes organised on an individual national basis would be enough to rectify abuses.

In April, Mr Hogan again acknowledged that Europe’s food chain is “broken”.