Some farmers with up to 90% of milk tied into fixed-price contracts

The purpose of these contracts is to provide milk suppliers with the opportunity to de-risk a portion of their milk supply. However, as inflation has soared those who signed up have been left behind.

"On the basis of what we know now, it was unwise to become so heavily exposed by fixing a milk price while not having some security around inputs."

Successive Governments have "neglected" to protect Irish family farms from the worst extremes of income volatility, according to the Irish Co-Operative Organisation Society (ICOS).

Representatives of ICOS attended a recent Oireachtas meeting, at which they called for the introduction of an income stabilisation measure in policy to enable dairy farmers to use periods when market returns are higher to create a modest rainy-day fund to support them when market returns are weaker, or cost of production increases greatly.