With dairy farmers struggling to make ends meet at current milk prices, the news of €11.1m in financial support from Brussels over the coming weeks is very welcome. If the money is divided out equally, it works out at about €600 per Irish dairy farm, or about €10 per cow for the average herd size in Ireland.

The €11.1m pot could potentially be matched by our own Department, bringing the funds up to €22.2m. Last September, the Irish Exchequer availed of this possibility to double the previous aid package. However, we have no details yet on that happening this time around.

Voluntary supply control

There had been talk that Brussels was going to reintroduce some form of compulsory milk supply management controls, but the Commission has stayed away from this. However, Brussels has allocated another €150m to member states if they want to voluntarily incentivise reduced supply.

This would work at processor level and would be similar to the voluntary scheme FrieslandCampina completed last December. Friesland wrote to Dutch dairy farmers and advised them if they could hold or reduce supply for six weeks to the end of January they would pay a bonus on milk supplied during that period. Friesland bore the cost of this bonus.

The advance of direct payments from mid-October again will provide further relief as milk cheques at that time of the year are very small.

Dairy farmers will await the detail on how the €11.1m will be divided up as member states have flexibility to define the measure or mix of measures on fund allocation.

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New supports for Irish dairy farmers