Breaking link on land and milk quota debated

The debate on the breaking of the link between land and the milk quota continued yesterday in Cork where the Irish Farmers' Association…

The debate on the breaking of the link between land and the milk quota continued yesterday in Cork where the Irish Farmers' Association held its annual dairy conference.

Currently milk can only be produced on land where a quota has existed since 1984 and, while this has brought stability to the system, it has created a number of problems.

Not least of these is that so-called "quota land" is much more expensive than land with no quota, and young farmers or farmers seeking to get into dairying cannot afford it.

The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy under Agenda 2000 will allow such a development, and this has created an ongoing debate in the farming community.

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At the conference yesterday the secretary-general of the Department of Agriculture and Food, Mr John Malone, warned that options needed to be examined carefully and in detail.

"The criterion has to be that any new system envisaged will, drawn on the experience of the system up to now, best meet the current needs of the sector and also take account of the need for future development," he told the conference.

"It would, of course, be particularly welcome if we could come up with a system which would relieve some of the burdens and the complexities of the present regime," he said.

It was clear that future policy needed to favour active milk-producers.

The chairman of the IFA's National Dairy Committee, Mr Padraig Walshe, said he wanted to see the link between land and quota broken and much closer co-operation between the milk processors who buy from the farmers.

He urged farmers to retain control of their co-ops and said mergers and acquisitions by co-ops had not taken costs out of the system and had caused difficulties.