The European Commission’s move to grant €280 million in emergency aid to dairy farmers affected by a slump in milk prices has been welcomed by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA).
Following meetings with the President of the Farm Council and the European Union Commissioner for Agriculture in Luxembourg today, IFA President Padraig Walshe said additional, direct financial support for Irish and European dairy farm families needed to be distributed to farmers immediately.
Mr Walshe called on the EU Commission to urgently re-think its overall agricultural strategy for the future, saying “all sectors, including tillage, beef and pigmeat, need Commission assistance at this time”.
“Farm families are facing the worst income situation in a generation, and the current market support systems must be maintained and enhanced until there is full recovery in dairy farm incomes,” he added.
The move to prop up the ailing dairy sector was announced today by EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel as angry farmers besieged talks in Luxembourg in the latest of a series of protests against low milk prices and plummeting incomes.
Armoured trucks virtually sealed off a meeting of EU farm ministers as demonstrators took to the streets, tipping over milk churns to signal their anger that it now costs more to produce than they can sell it for.
Inside the talks, Ms Fischer Boel asked the ministers to approve the emergency grant but declined to indicate what particular measures the funding would be spent on.
“The concrete nature of these measures still needs to be decided, but it is clear that these measures should benefit dairy farmers directly,” she told the talks.
She said it was now up to EU finance ministers, meeting next month, to approve the spending, with a view to activating funds at the start of next year.
Ms Fischer Boel acknowledged the move would strech the union’s budget, but made clear it was what a majority of member states wanted.
The message was lost on the demonstrators in Luxembourg today, who continued protesting despite earlier concessions easing EU state aid rules to let national authorities issue cash handouts. Last month the commissioner responded to the milk price slump by offering national authorities the option to pay farmers state aid of up €15,000 — about €13,800 under a “Temporary Crisis Framework”.
Irish farmers receive almost €800 million in EU payments from today as part of an advance on their Single Farm Payment.
The payout will be 70 per cent of what farmers are due every December. The payment was brought forward this year because of bad weather and poor product prices.
Last week, Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith confirmed work had begun on organising the advance payment to almost 114,000 farmers.
This followed the payment to date of €200 million to some 92,000 farmers under the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme, he said, and was further welcome news for farmers and for the rural economy.
He said that during negotiations in Brussels for an early payout, he had been acutely aware of the difficulties experienced by farmers and had argued for the highest possible advance payment.
Under longer term plans, existing EU milk quota restrictions are to be phased out by 2015.
The quotas effectively help keep prices buoyant by preventing over-production, but the Commission insists the sector will be viable and competitive by the time the quota system ends.
Addtional reporting PA