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Dunmanway meeting cautious on 2010 milk prices amid calls for ‘reality check’
Pictured at the West Cork ICMSA executive public meeting on ‘Milk prices and income 2010’ at the Parkway Hotel, Dunmanway were – from left – Eileen Calnan, Clonakilty, secretary, West Cork ICMSA; JJ Walsh, Carbery Milk Products; Willem Smeenk, OPL, France; Jackie Cahill, president, ICMSA, and Michael O’Sullivan, Roscarbery, chairman of West Cork ICMSA, who chaired the meeting. (Photos: Denis Boyle)
NEARLY 200 dairy farmers from all over the Mid and West Cork areas gathered at the Parkway Hotel in Dunmanway Wednesday, February 24 last, to hear the president of ICMSA, Jackie Cahill, J.J. Walsh of Carbery Milk Products and the Dutch farmer, Willem Smenk, who is an official with the French Dairy Farmers Union, OPL, discuss the prospects for milk price this year.
The meeting was hosted by West Cork ICMSA, which was described by Mr Cahill as one of the 18,000-strong association’s most active and committed local executives. The chairman of West Cork ICMSA is Mike O’Sullivan from Roscarbery and he stressed the huge importance of the dairy sector to the West Cork area, where Drinagh, Lisavaird, Barryroe, Bandon and the massive Diarygold concern all provided local employment, as well as containing some of those paying the highest milk price in the country despite the overall collapse in milk price over the last 18 months to two years.
The ICMSA president, Jackie Cahill, cautioned against over-optimism in respect of this year’s milk price and repeated his conviction that it is now abundantly clear that the EU policy on the milk sector has failed. Mr Cahill said it was policymakers’ inability or unwillingness to accept that production levels and farm price were linked that would condemn farmers to another year where production will be in excess of demand and where prices will be substantially below what is required to earn any income.
Mr Cahill said that recent speculation about milk prices repeating the kind of highs we saw in 2007 later this year was not based on any calm analysis of the situation and only served to distract attention away from the policy changes that needed to happen if we were to move forward to a reasonable milk price. “It’s long past time for a reality check,” said the ICMSA president.
Mr Smeenk, a Dutchman farming in France and expert on continental milk production, said that recent figures show that total milk production in the EU in 2009 was on par with production with 2008. Decreases in Member States such as Ireland and France were offset by increases in Germany, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands and this was despite an unprecedented and desperate fall in producer prices.
Overall, Mr Smeenk agreed with the ICMSA expectation is that EU output in 2010 will remain the same as 2009. While global prices may increase, New Zealand is likely to record an increase in production despite recent worries of drought in that country and that will partially offset the projected decline in US production.
“The prospects for EU milk price in 2010, unfortunately, are not encouraging. It is almost a certainty that the average 2010 milk price will not reach the level of 28 cent per litre or higher, which is the basic minimum required to avoid further losses in dairy farming in Ireland.
“Already we see milk prices of 26.5 cent per litre being offered in Northern France for March milk. The fundamental and substantial imbalance in the EU market combined with the reluctance of the Commission to fund the export of product out of the Community and an overhang of supply from last year is the major obstacle to that upward price movement dairy farmers so badly need,” stated Mr Smeenk.
A number of contributors from the floor pointed out that the EU Commission and the Member States who favour continuing the policy of quota de-regulation are not alone failing to grasp the fundamental point of market balance but they are building up problems rather than solving them. Current stock levels must be disposed of in an orderly fashion and that will require subsidised exports sales primarily outside the EU.
Confirming his Association’s stated policy, Mr Cahill said that “ICMSA and our European colleagues within the EMB remain convinced that a flexible supply-management system, enforceable under EU law, was essential in order to lift milk price permanently above 30 cent per litre.
“All the other proposals simply will not work and the recent figures are confirming that. When are we going to get real about giving dairy farmers a decent milk price? ”