One in four Irish dairy farmers seeks EU aid to cut back

One quarter of Ireland’s dairy farmers are taking part in the EU’s €150 million Milk Reduction Scheme.

They have applied to cut production by 74,225 tonnes in the next three months, compared to 2015 — an average of 17 tonnes (16,425 litres) across 4,447 farms.

The scheme has been almost fully subscribed already, with applications from farmers across the EU offering to reduce production in the final quarter of 2016 by 1.06 million tonnes (of the 1.07 million tonnes available).