Editorial: ten years on from EU milk quotas

EU milk quota abolition saved family farms all over the country. On so many farms, it allowed a wage to be generated for the next generation. It is highly ironic that we often talk about farm succession as a problem in 2025. However, if the EU didn’t abolish quotas 10 years ago, not alone would succession be an even more difficult job, but we would have lost so many farmers and food producers to many other professions.

Succession is always going to be a problem. A large part of that nowadays is because the asset value of Irish farms has increased substantially and farms have increased in scale. An average-sized dairy farm with facilities is now worth close to €3m. The division, the process, the completion, takes a bit of planning, both physical and financial, and it takes tax planning short and long term, while it offers opportunity and difficult decisions. Wealth share-out in any business or family is and will always present challenges.

There was a theory when the then Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel announced in 2007/2008 that quotas were to be removed, it was going to open the flood gates to European milk and subsequently, milk price would fall considerably. That theory never materialised. The abolition roadmap was really tested in 2009, when global dairy markets crashed and weather was difficult.

There was so much noise at a European level that Germany and four other EU countries called for the EU to stand back from quota removal in 2009, but the then Danish European Agriculture Commissioner Fischer Boel held the line.

The managed exit from quotas by injecting more quota into countries to devalue existing quotas worked. It prioritised quota supply for growing family farms, so they could touch and feel what growth looked like. If you like, it shortened the actual seven-year wait time to the actual removal date in 2015, allowing family farms to plan, develop and save. Part of that roadmap meant having stock on the ground and that takes years of planning.

Despite the phased withdrawal when the milk quota brakes were finally removed, there were 35 years of pent-up supply bursting down the walls. Milk production moved fast towards 9bn litres from 5bn. Just when it looked like processing capacity was going to limit any further growth, the government’s environmental policy halted progress.

Maybe there is also a touch of growth fatigue for some farms that had a very steep growth curve, but either way, milk supply has flattened and started pointing downwards.

So what of the future? Competitive grassland farming remains the best hand of cards. It brings positives to the product, the people, animal welfare, the environment and farm finances.

The Irish milk system is driven on stocking rate and growing large volumes of grass – if that is policy-restricted, then it undermines the very basis of family dairy farming in Ireland. So that is a risk not just to dairy farmers, but to the wider agri sector. The dairy sector has the financial firepower to compete for land, so the knock-on impact pushes into the other agri sectors.

We continue to need the basics to be right. The very foundation of dairy farming in Ireland is based on a clear vision and plan, and right now, that is missing. Independent advice to allow choice and building of sustainable environment and economic businesses is crucial. We know there is still evolution in the pipeline. Businesses have prospered at the development of the sector.

Some co-ops or farms that have investment pains may have to consolidate. So there are challenges, always were challenges and there always will be challenges. However, a whole new wave of young, highly skilled, enthusiastic farmers was ignited by quota removal.

Farmers had a choice to get into milking cows. It has transformed towns and villages around rural Ireland.

Let’s just soak that up for a week and get back to the industry challenges next week. Dairy farmers are recovering from a busy two months, but most wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s celebrate 10 years of positivity. See more on pages 18-25 and 72.