THIS is the fourth year that ICMSA and the Irish Examiner have come together to commission and publish what has become the most definitive snapshot of the attitudes and ambitions of the farming community, writes John Comer, president of the ICMSA.

As the EU moves to pay dairy farmers to produce less, Irish CAP expert Alan Matthews said the measure could raise EU dairy farm incomes in the last quarter of the year by as much as €289m.

On July 18, European commissioner for agriculture and rural development Phil Hogan will present a new EU dairy support package to the council of agriculture ministers.

A new EU scheme allowing dairy farmers to agree milk production cuts is unlikely to affect the main flush of EU milk production this spring.

EU member states have been cleared to offer cash to dairy farmers reduce their milk supply, expected to be about 10c per litre of supply reduction they achieve.

Billions of euro and thousands of jobs will flow from the historic deregulation of Europe’s dairy sector, a string of Irish ministers promised at the opening this week of a vast new plant to make dried milk for developing markets.

EUROPE is on course to undermine its Treaty of Rome commitments to provide its citizens with safe food and its farming community with a fair income, according to ICMSA deputy president John Comer.

DAIRY farmers and the Irish co-ops have come up with a joint plan to agree competitive loans with Rabobank, a leading US bank and other overseas lenders.

MANY European dairy farmers believe their sons and daughters will be driven out of the industry by downward price pressure when the quota era ends in 2015.

THE dairy industry will watch the signals from next week’s EU Dairy Management Committee closely for signs of prices stabilising.

THE president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association Jackie Cahill cautioned yesterday against over-optimism over this year’s milk price.

THURLES farmer Jackie Cahill has been re-elected as president of the Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), but only after a nail-biting photo-finish.

WITHOUT milk quotas, farmers would have got only 16 or 17 cent per litre for milk this year, according to ICMSA.

IRISH farmers would need the entire €280 million aid package on offer to EU dairy farmers this year to bring them back to profit, not the €11m they stand to receive, according to a farmers’ representative.

EU DAIRY farmer protests escalated this week — even as signs of stronger international dairy product markets emerged.

MORE than 5,000 French dairy farmers have withheld milk for the past week in protest at low prices, according to the European Milk Board. Farmers in Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg have also held back milk.

FARMERS in Belgium dumped 3 million litres of milk yesterday to protest low prices which are pushing them toward financial ruin.

A CAMPAIGN by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association to highlight the crisis in the dairy sector will be brought to the gates of Government Buildings in Dublin today.

MANY farming families are struggling to survive as a result of the dire situation in dairy markets, according to MEP Máiréad McGuinness.

A SELL-OUT of the dairy sector in world trade talks is the real agenda behind the dismantling of milk quotas by the European Commission, the leader of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association Jackie Cahill has claimed.

EUROPEAN milk producers have followed the lead of Third World farmers by launching a fair trade-style certification for milk.

EUROPE has become a burden to most farmers who now see it as having a primary role to regulate them out of existence, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association leader Jackie Cahill warned yesterday.

EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel seemed surprised to find TDs and senators unhappy about milk prices in Ireland, when she addressed the Oireachtas.