Published: Wednesday, 21st July, 2010 5:00pm

Failure of co-ops to raise price is wrong

Cavan IFA Dairy Committee chairman Anthony Leddy expressed his strong disappointment at the failure by some of the country's main co-ops to lift their June milk price to 30c/l + VAT. He said a price lift would have been fully justified in the face of an increase in the IDB June index to 35.4c/l (at 3.3% protein and 3.6% fat), and EU gross commodity returns all exceeding 35c/l during the month of June.

Mr. Leddy urged other co-ops to make every effort to pass back the maximum market returns to help ease the huge financial pressures still on their suppliers.

"IFA has very actively lobbied in favour of very prudent intervention stock handling by the EU Commission during June and early July. This has clearly helped sustain reasonably stable commodity returns, with butter prices actually continuing to strengthen. The gross returns for most dairy commodities in June have all remained well in excess of 35c/l, with cheddar cheese + whey powder exceeding 38c/l," Anthony Leddy said.

"If evidence were needed of the relevance of this situation to the Irish commodity sellers, the Irish Dairy Board revised their June index upward to 35.4c/l at 3.3% protein and 3.6% butterfat - leaving clear scope for Irish co-ops to pay farmers 30c/l + VAT," he added.

"The failure by Kerry, Glanbia and Lakeland to reflect these facts in the June milk price is very disappointing, and their suppliers will demand the issue be addressed in the July milk price," Anthony Leddy said.

"The board of other co-ops will be meeting in coming days to decide what to pay their suppliers for June milk. I urge all remaining co-ops to not lose sight of the importance to pass back the absolute maximum possible to farmers who are still trying to recover from the severe income losses incurred last year," he concluded.

Nitrates

IFA president John Bryan has announced the intensification of the nitrates campaign over the coming weeks, as all TDs and senators will be lobbied by IFA members in their constituency offices.

John Bryan said, "Over 150 IFA officers met Oireachtas Members in Dublin last week and demanded changes to make the nitrates regulations more workable. Farmers are continuously questioning the logic behind slurry spreading restrictions based on the time of the year and the logic of banning ploughing during the winter."

"The current review of the nitrates regulations is an important opportunity for TDs to accept that changes are required and flexibility must be built in to allow farmers to farm based on best agronomic conditions rather than time of the year."

IFA's Environment chairman Pat Farrell has also called for the continuation of the phosphorous provision for the pig and poultry sector and a reduction in the extent of the buffer zone around water abstraction points.

Map Acre Areas

IFA president, John Bryan, has called on the Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith, to address the draconian penalties being imposed where his Department have deemed that the farmers have over-claimed land for Single Farm Payment and the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme.

Mr. Bryan said that the level of penalties being imposed on the farmers affected is excessive and will impact severely on farm income in 2010 and beyond. Backdating the penalties to 2005 is totally unfair and unacceptable as in most cases the farmer had declared the lands, which he had considered and was advised previously to be eligible for payment. Indeed the Department of Agriculture themselves has inspected this land and deemed it eligible in the past.

The IFA president said that it is clear that ineligible areas such as houses, sites, roads and farmyards have to be excluded from the SFP application. However it is unacceptable that the Department of Agriculture are applying a stricter interpretation of the criteria to exclude many areas that were included for payment in the past.

Mr. Bryan called on the Minister for Agriculture to insist that his Department refrain from penalising farmers and to set in motion a resolution to this problem.

The minister will have to go back to Brussels to argue that the penal retrospective approach where the Department is going back over five years is not acceptable. Imposing penalties on farmers who are so dependent on the direct payment system and living on unacceptably low incomes without having recourse to rectify the problem is not acceptable.