IRISH farmers responded more ambitiously to the end of milk quotas just over a year ago than any of their European peers. They kicked off the EU shackles which had curtailed ambition for 31 years by increasing milk production by 18.5%. This is the highest growth figure in the entire community.

The country’s co-ops have been urged to arrest the fall in milk prices caused by the downturn in global dairy markets.

Farming organisations will appear before the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee later to give their views on the tax measures in the farming sector.

Congratulations flooded in from across Europe for Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney’s work in brokering a partial CAP reform in Brussels yesterday — but the main farm organisations at home were understandably apprehensive about what amounts to a major change in the direction of EU agriculture policy.

The president of the Irish Farmers’ Association has said Simon Coveney, the agriculture minister, “doesn’t understand how serious” the fodder crisis is and accused him of being “very slow to react”.

The €1m fodder import scheme announced yesterday will reduce the cost of a bale of hay to farmers by about one third, according to Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney.

Farm groups are escalating their calls for a concerted national response to the fodder crisis facing farmers.

THE best option for Ireland might be to leave the euro in order to re-build the economy through exports, a farm leader told the Taoiseach in Limerick at the weekend.

IRISH farmers were in Brussels to outline the scale of the flooding that turned thousands of acres into vast lakes across the country to European Union agriculture and rural development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

ONE of the country’s biggest dairies has delighted consumers and incurred the wrath of milk producers by cutting 20 cent off a two litre pack of milk.

FARMERS brought a Friesian cow to the steps of the European Commission offices in Dublin yesterday to highlight their anger at the prices they are being paid for milk supplies.

FUNDING for the LEADER programme has still not been delivered to the integrated local development companies, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association said yesterday.

CONSUMERS were warned yesterday that the proposed world trade deal being negotiated in Geneva poses a threat to food safety.

THE Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association leader Jackie Cahill has claimed that the approval of any world trade deal requires European Union unanimity in accordance with a Court of Justice decision back in 1994.

SOME leading organisations could urge a “No” vote on the Lisbon Treaty for reasons unrelated to the document, an Oireachtas committee has indicated.

VITAL Irish economic interests are in imminent danger at the world trade talks, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association warned yesterday.

THE difference between a farm jeep and the so-called Donnybrook tractor, an SUV driven by an urban dweller, must be recognised by the Government, a farm leader declared last night.

A RECORD 166,000 people attended the three-day national ploughing championships at Annaharvey, Tullamore, Co Offaly, the managing director of the National Ploughing Association (NPA) disclosed last night.

FUNDING is to be provided for the employment of 11 rural recreation officers in areas where there are clusters of suitable, accessible walks, Éamon Ó Cuív said yesterday.

ALL the live cattle imported into the State from England since the start of last month have been traced.

THE Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association leader, Jackie Cahill, warned yesterday that co-ops might lose focus on cutting costs and increasing efficiencies at a time of high dairy product prices.

IN the course of your long editorial (July 7), you raise a number of important points relating to land access for recreational use.

THE recent package for sheep farmers will do little to secure the sector’s future, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association has claimed.

THE Mountaineering Council of Ireland (MCI) is the national representative body for hillwalking and mountaineering with over 9,000 members living all over the country.

A BITTER row between farmers and the Department of Agriculture and Food over the level of red tape surrounding EU schemes and directives is set to escalate today.

THE new Nitrates Regulations have been law since July, but there’s been precious little clarification for farmers trying to interpret some of the complicated rules in the 14,000-word document.

CERTAIN veterinary medicines for food- producing animals are to be exempted from the general legal requirement that they be supplied only on prescription.

A CALL by the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association to have the proposed additional suckler herd supports paid on an area rather than on a cow basis has been criticised by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association.

LEADERS of the country’s two largest farming organisations have clashed over a proposed livestock scheme.

DROUGHT conditions are posing serious difficulties for farmers, according to the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) president Jackie Cahill.

THE cross-compliance inspections procedure under the single payment scheme has been defended by Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan as fair and equitable.

THE Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has put trade unions and the directors and management of co-ops on notice that the normal option of cutting returns to farmers is no longer available.

THE retention of milk quota ring-fencing going forward is critical to the maintenance of the dairy industry in vulnerable parts of Ireland in light of the double threat arising from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the nitrates directive, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association warned yesterday.