Commissioner Hogan opened the Virginia Show in Co Cavan this Wednesday. There, he told the Irish Farmers Journal: “There is a huge interest in this particular scheme where we are trying to bring about balance between supply and demand in the milk market. If the milk market doesn’t achieve balance, we won’t have a higher price for the farmer.”

The scheme, announced last month, will pay 14c/litre of milk supply cut compared with last year.

“This a novel scheme in the European community and I expect it to be a major success,” he continued.

Farmers will have an opportunity to enter the scheme in October, November and December this year. “There will be conditions attached,” Hogan said, adding that the details of the scheme would be published this Thursday.

Ireland to ‘add to’ targeted aid

A further €350m of “targeted aid” for farmers around the EU will be distributed to each individual member state on their own conditions, with an option for each country to match it with national funds.

Although the Irish Farmers Journal understands the Irish Government has not yet made a decision on this point, this was clearly Commissioner Hogan’s favoured option: “Ireland has got €11m under that scheme, Minister Creed is going to add to that and, at the end of the day, he will make the decisions in consultations with the stakeholders on how he is going to spend that money, but it’s principally for the dairy sector.”

Hogan said that no member state has yet “indicated their interest” on what this money will be spent on.

“They have until 1 November if they wish to take that long to draw up their own programmes, so we have tailored it for maximum flexibility to the farmers in each member state to reflect their own conditions,” he said.

Listen to our interview with Commissioner Hogan in the podcast below:

On Brexit, Commissioner Hogan said it was “business as usual” for farmers north and south of the border with the current CAP running until 2019.

“The unknown factors of the future won’t be known until the negotiations are completed, and that will take, I’d say, a number of years,” he said.

It is just going to have a major impact on agriculture and also throw into question the whole viability of the United Kingdom as a union

He also said that he was “disappointed” with the DUP’s stance during the Brexit referendum in Northern Ireland: “I was surprised at the Democratic Unionist Party deciding to advocate a leave campaign, on the basis that it is just going to have a major impact on agriculture and also throw into question the whole viability of the United Kingdom as a union.”

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