Donegal dairy farmers are struggling
By John McAteer, Tirconaill Tribune: As Donegal’s livestock and dairy farmers count the cost of falling prices the massive fall in milk prices looks set to remove one billion Euros from the rural economy as farm gate prices have crashed by 36% in the past year.
The EU dairy crisis support package announced announced on Monday in Brussels has been labelled insufficient by farming organisations in Ireland.
Meanwhile livestock farmers say they are now suffering a loss of 50 cent a kilo on this time last year and this is the equivalent of €200 a head for most classes of cattle.
John Gibbons who farms near Woodlands has called for the sacking of the IFA livestock committee and the beef forum saying they’ve achieved nothing and are not fit for purpose. He points to the falling income levels and mounting debt crises on farms in Donegal and asks how much longer the Irish Government can continue to sit on its hands doing nothing to confront the decline of rural Ireland and its only sustainable industry…agriculture.
Meanwhile John McDaid, the Croaghan supplier to the Carrigans meat plant said the situation is ‘a disaster’ with serious restrictions on weight limits and he blames imports to the UK from Poland for most of the distressed prices.
“There is uncertainty over Brexit: the falling level of the Euro and with most producers in Donegal facing a mounting cash crisis to stay in business, we need urgent action from the Government and the Minister for Agriculture to come up with a cash plan to keep farming viable,” says Mr. McDaid.
John Gibbons is even more critical of the Dept of Agriculture, the Minister, the IFA and the beef barons whom he says are dictating pricing and policies.
At the recent IFA meeting in Letterkenny, John Gibbons told a presidential candidate, Henry Burns, that the IFA livestock committee was now completely irrelevant and no longer fit for purpose.
Turning the role of the Beef Forum, John Gibbons said that since it was formed it had achieved nothing and was only a talking shop with no effect or impact whatever.
He said: “I know one livestock producer in the Letterkenny vicinity who was forced to hold onto his cattle due to a technicality and he’s now lost a total of €25 thousand and there are no options to claim back those losses. There is not enough competition in the cattle industry and live exports are being delayed with a hold up in licences for boats.
Somebody has to accept responsibility for this delay and I’d like to hear more from the farm organisations as to what they are doing to solve the crisis. As far as I can see the shots are being called by one major player and everyone dances to his tune,” said John Gibbons.
And now, less than a year after lifting of quotas, EU proposes new measures to deal with falling prices..Milk suppliers have told the Tribune that they are now forced into a cut of 15 cents while the shelf price of €1.25 per litre has not changed in a number of years. Dairy men say they price of their product is no longer sustainable.
One Ramelton farmer says milk prices have now crashed to a level that is undermining their enterprises. And he says costs are increasing and they’ve no alternative but to reduce herd sizes in the hope that milk cheques. However, an even more drastic picture of the dairy price crash emerges when the impact on the wider rural economy is considered. Milk prices fell more in Ireland than any other EU country in January when compared to the same month last year, according to latest data from the EU Milk Market Observatory.
The February return is down some 13% on the same month last year and a massive 36% on returns posted in February 2014.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association has been lobbying for an income-smoothing policy modelled on the successful Australian Government’s income averaging tool.
Meanwhile the IFA has demanded more cooperation and consolidation between co-ops to help ensure that farmers get the best possible milk price following a prediction that one third of dairy farmers are in a loss making situation.
The EU farm meeting on Monday in Brussels heard proposals to to introduce voluntary milk supply controls in a bid to halt the decline in prices.
The move, coming less than a year after the lifting of milk quotas, is likely to be opposed by several member States, including Ireland. Overproduction of milk since quotas were abolished in April last year has been highlighted as one of the main reasons for the current slump in prices.
EU agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan told a crisis meeting of agriculture ministers that he was prepared to introduce supply management measures on a temporary basis to deal with the crisis.
The average price paid to Irish dairy farmers has fallen from 38 cent a litre in 2014 to a current rate of 24-26 cent a litre.
A glut in production globally but more recently in Europe, a slowdown in Chinese demand and Russia’s trade embargo have all combined to bring prices down. France has been demanding the introduction supply management measures to deal with collapse in prices.
However, in a submission prior to Monday’s meeting, the Irish delegation led by Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney insisted regulating supply was not an appropriate response to downturns in price.
The Irish Farmers’ Association’s National Chairman Jer Bergin said Mr Coveney must reject the notion that progressive Irish and European dairy farmers are the main cause of the current international dairy market imbalance.
He said the current downturn was due to a multitude of global demand – China, Russia, low oil prices – and supply factors, which have coincided with the end of milk quotas.
John Comer of the ICMSA said dairy farmers here would welcome the signal that, finally, the enormity of the crisis and extent of the income wipe-out had finally “percolated through”.
He said the ICMSA had no objection in principle to a subsidy being paid to individuals not to produce milk on a state-by-state basis, but he said it was paramount that any such scheme was voluntary and that those farmers who had scaled up and planned on the basis of the ending of quotas were not in any way being compelled to cut back production.
Overproduction of milk since quotas were abolished in April last year has been highlighted as one of the main reasons for the current slump in prices.
EU agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan told a crisis meeting of agriculture ministers in Brussels on Monday that he was prepared to introduce supply management measures on a temporary basis to deal with the crisis.
The average price paid to Irish dairy farmers has fallen from 38 cent a litre in 2014 to a current rate of 24-26 cent a litre. A glut in production globally but more recently in Europe, a slowdown in Chinese demand and Russia’s trade embargo have all combined to bring prices down.
This week’s Tirconaill Tribune is on sale today (Wednesday).
Tags: