Farmers urge new agri-food regulator to intervene in fixed milk prices

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald with party agriculture spokesperson Matt Carthy and ICMSA president Pat McCormack. Picture: Don Moloney

Farm families have been “crippled” financially and emotionally this year as a result of being in fixed milk price contracts, a conference heard this week.

Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association president Pat McCormack has urged for the Agri-Food Regulator, a new independent statutory authority, to put these fixed price schemes on its agenda when established.

“Somebody along the food chain made exceptional profits at ordinary farmers’ expenses and they’re still in hiding,” Mr McCormack told the ICMSA’s AGM this week.

“The Agri-Food Regulator, I think it would be a good first job for them to get their teeth stuck into.” 

He said that farmers entered into these contracts “in good faith, and obviously to reduce volatility”.

“It has crippled them financially and it has crippled them even more so emotionally,” he said.

He added that transparency around milk price is a key concern for farmers.

Last week, cabinet approved the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022 for presentation to the Dáil.

This bill, when enacted, will establish the new regulator.

Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said that this body will be a “strong advocate for farmers, fishers and all food producers”, and that it will “shine a light on the sector” to improve the position of the primary producer, while bringing greater transparency and fairness.

Some of the key functions of the regulator will be performing price and market analysis and reporting, and enforcement of agri-food unfair trading law.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner at the ICMSA’s event, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said that her party had “argued for something with more teeth”.

“We don’t need an organisation that will simply collate and publish information that’s already available,” Ms McDonald said.

“What we need is an office of enforcement that can get under the bonnet of things, and can go in, can find malpractice, and then can actually bring people to account and bring them to book.” 

Sinn Féin agriculture spokesperson Matt Carthy also told the Irish Examiner: “My appeal to Government is we want to see a regulatory body that has real teeth and can actually resolve the issues of cartel-like behaviours that have been undoubtedly happening in the beef sector, and other unfair trading practices.

“We would like for Government to work constructively with us; for the first time after years of talking about having a food regulator, this is an opportunity to actually put in place a body that can restore the faith and trust of both farmers and consumers and needs to be got right.” 

Answering questions from farmers who attended the AGM on what Sinn Féin would do if they were in power to support farmers currently struggling in fixed price contracts, Mr Carthy said that by way of intervention, the Government is limited in what it can do, “but I do think that pressure can be exerted on the co-ops”.

“Fixed prices should benefit everybody that’s part of it,” Mr Carthy told the event.

“They are part of the overall solution, they give some level of certainty; but when you have a situation where everybody along the line is protected by fixed price contracts except the primary producer, and because of rising costs over the past 12 months, the primary producer is actually losing money to be part of them.

“That’s not fair, that’s not what the purpose of the contracts was in the first place.

“The only thing we can do is put pressure on the co-ops to change tact because they’re the people who signed into the contracts.” 

He added that “unfortunately, that’s as much as you can do” in terms of intervention in a private contract.

“But if I signed a contract with somebody and after a period of time it is absolutely clear that I’m benefitting at the expense of the other person, then the decent thing to do is to renegotiate,” he added.

Meanwhile, ICMSA president Mr McCormack added that market milk price will start 2023 at a “historically high level”.