The meeting was used by the minister to discuss current issues in the dairy industry and to prepare for the council meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Brussels on Monday 14 March.

Attending the dairy forum were representatives from farmer organisations, dairy processors, banks and government agencies. The market outlook for 2016 and access to finance for farmers was discussed at the meeting.

A ten-point plan, plus an additional point on reviewing the tariff regime for fertilisers, has been circulated which the minister aims to be the basis of discussion at Monday’s Council meeting.

“The proposals which we have made are a combination of short-term market support measures as well as medium-long term measures to help tackle volatility,” maintained Minister Coveney.

Before the dairy forum, he met European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan in Dublin to discuss Ireland’s proposals. Minister Coveney said: “The priority now has to be on the measures which can help producers out of this current slump as well as on measures which can minimise the effects of such downward volatility in the future.”

At the forum meeting, the IFA called for a variety of milk price supports to be introduced nationally and for superlevy payments to be suspended for 2016 at the EU level. The IFA also called for intervention to continue at the full price when maximum levels are reached.

ICMSA president John Comer believes that a supply constraint mechanism is needed as well as a review of intervention prices. “There needs to be a realistic floor price in place. I can’t understand why our Minister didn’t put it to the Council as an Irish proposal,” he said in an interview to be published on Thursday in the Irish Farmers Journal.

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