Dairy farmers' income plight in spotlight
IFA president Joe Healy, who met with EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan in Brussels, said the majority of dairy farms will be in the red this month.
He urged the Commissioner to act without delay to ease the cash flow stresses on dairy farmers which includes superlevy deductions from this month’s milk cheque.
Calling for a deferral by the EU of the super levy repayments, ICMSA Dairy Committee chairperson Gerald Quain said dairy farmers were “reeling” by the reduced size of their April milk cheques.
He said 3,741 farmers were repaying €35.6 million but farm milk prices were below the cost of production for nearly a year.
It was an extraordinary and punitive measure to continue making the deductions from already very hard-pressed milk suppliers, he said.
