On pages 12-13 this week we carry an interview with US Secretary for Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Beef dominated the discussion with the US focused on securing increased access to the EU beef market as part of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Programme (TTIP). What is clear is that, at this stage in the negotiation process, the US has no intention of adhering to what are viewed as politically motivated, rather than science-based, EU production standards.

Similar to the US approach, we expect Brussels to mount a robust challenge to the trade barriers and quota management surrounding the US dairy sector. While the US grants global import licences for 135,000 metric tonnes (mt) of cheese and butter per annum, the allocation of this quota is being managed in a way that prevents countries from accessing it fully.

We should not think it a coincidence that the quota of 135,000mt includes just 12,000mt of cheddar and just 6,977mt of butter – both categories reflect the primary outputs from the US dairy herd.

Much of the remaining quota is allocated to redundant types of cheese and, critically, the licences are not transferable across the product range. This in effect sees 77,000mt, or just 57% of the total US dairy quota licences, being utilised each year.

US quota management is a serious issue for Ireland. While Germany often claims the headlines in relation to the success of the Kerrygold brand, the US story is equally impressive. Under the leadership of the Irish Dairy Board’s (IDB) US president Roisin Hennerty, the Kerrygold butter brand has out-performed the market by some distance – growing at a rate of 32.4% per annum compared to national growth of 1.6%. Kerrygold is now the fifth largest-selling butter brand in a US market worth $1.6bn annually. It is the top-selling imported butter.

Meanwhile, the Kerrygold cheese range, which encompasses Cashel Blue, is recording annual growth of 6% per annum. Nationally, the $2.6bn market is recording growth of 3.2% per annum. The US team at the IDB project that the market for the Kerrygold brand can grow from an estimated revenue of $100m in 2014 to $250m in 2018. However, a major barrier to maximising the potential return from this market growth to Irish farmers will be quota management by the US.

With access to US quota for butter and cheddar exhausted, the IDB will be faced with a scenario where they will incur an import tariff of $1,200 per m/t on future growth in exports to the US. With Kerrygold already attracting a premium price on the retail shelf, this added cost will undoubtedly translate back to milk price.

At the official opening of the IDB’s processing and innovation centre in Wisconsin this week, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney learned first-hand the potential of the US market for Irish dairy farmers. He cannot allow these benefits to be lost due to quota management by the US. The issue must be pushed up the political agenda in Brussels. The artificial trade barriers that are preventing 47% of the existing US dairy licences from being utilised must be removed prior to TTIP negotiations progressing. Brussels should insist on globalising the segmentation of licences rather than allowing the US to continue to ring fence them around a product range that no longer reflects market demands.