Letter: over €4m loss in farm incomes due to liquid milk loophole

Dear Sir: Your commentary on recent developments in the liquid milk market in the Irish Farmers Journal edition of 11 July (pages 3 and 19) was quite worrying, in that, in my view, it fails to highlight a serious anomaly in the regulation of liquid milk supply in the State.

Milk purchasing co-ops within the State are bound by the terms of the Milk (Regulation of Supply) Act, 1994, and are prohibited from purchasing any milk from within the State, for sale as liquid, unless it is purchased under a contract approved by the National Milk Agency, providing for, among other things, “adequacy of compensation”.

On the other hand, purchasers from over the border face no such requirements, whether the milk is bought north or south. The result is that southern-based liquid milk co-ops paid, on average last year, 3.94c/l more for milk than was paid for northern milk, according to the statistics published by the National Milk Agency.

Remember that in Northern Ireland, there is no regulation on the purchase of milk for sale as liquid, nor is there regulation on Northern Irish companies buying milk in the Republic of Ireland. This legislative anomaly makes a mockery of the great efforts of the dairy sector to create a sustainable living for those family farms that are committed to the supply of quality liquid milk.

The retailers who take advantage of this legal loophole should be aware that the purchase of this unregulated milk results in the loss of over €4m in income to the family farms whose milk is being displaced. Those farm families are the neighbours, relations and friends of the customers whom the retailers are hoping to attract to their stores.