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Dairygold’s chief executive Jim Woulfe has warned of stark consequences for Ireland’s dairy industry north and south if Brexit negotiations end without an agreement on free trade between the UK and the EU.
In this case, the default WTO tariff of €1,671/t would apply to cheese, which Woulfe told the Irish Farmers Journal is equivalent to 16c/l of manufacturing milk. “This is more than half of the current milk price,” he said, speaking ahead of the IFA’s conference on Brexit for farmers at Goffs in Kill, Co Kildare.
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Woulfe added that the volume of Irish milk currently turned into cheddar cheese specific to the UK market is 1.1bn litres annually, equivalent to Dairygold’s entire milk pool.
“We need to make sure our case is understood first – and I think it is,” said Woulfe, who will meet Agriculture Minister Michael Creed and European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan among other speakers at Monday’s event.
Dairygold, Kerry, Glanbia and Carbery all manufacture cheddar for export to the UK. While this is made in the south, Woulfe said that the wider dairy industry was integrated across the border. “We’re one island for milk processing,” he said, adding that the UK and Ireland had a history of free trade going back centuries: “We’re putting up artificial borders.”
With EU leaders due to meet next Saturday to set their common roadmap for Brexit, Woulfe said he wanted to see “the recognition of the uniqueness of the long common market relationship we have had with the UK”.
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