ICMSA says government lacks focus on dairy crisis

The ICMSA has described the Government’s declared policy on the dairy crisis as “lamentable and effectively non-existent” and has called for an immediate focus on the depressed farmer milk price which is seeing a “haemorrhaging” of money out of rural districts.

ICMSA president John Comer said the ongoing low milk price has seen farmers lose €600m in income and the rural economy lose €1bn.

He said that farmers were shocked to see the crisis dismissed in the Programme for Government in “six-odd sentences of platitudes and vague aspirations”.

Mr Comer said it was depressing to see the new Government seemed to not have a single coherent policy that farmers could look to for relief.

He said that citing items such as the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme and knowledge transfer schemes was irrelevant when put beside the fact that farmers are facing a potential zero income for 2016.

He said Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed was entitled to people’s best wishes in his endeavours and a period of grace to study the situation, but said the absence of policies in the Programme for Government did not augur well.