Press Room

Macra na Feirme national president Colm Markey has welcomed the recent announcement from the Minister for Agriculture that up to 30% of milk quota will be set aside for young farmers under the new milk quota regime.

Mr. Markey said that the announcement was good news for young farmers and would ensure that most young farmers would not be priced out of the market for quota. 'We were initially very concerned about plans to introduce an open market system for milk quota but following numerous meetings with the Department we are happy with the details of today's announcement,' he said.

Mr. Markey said that the new regime had struck a balance between keeping prices down and releasing more milk quota and he acknowledged that the Minister had included a number of vital ‘price cooling measures' in the new regime. 'Farmers in Ireland spent over €300 MILLION on milk quota since the year 2000 and it is vital that quota prices are kept down at a time when milk price is falling,' he said.

The young farmer leader pointed out that farmers who exit dairy farming will retain the decoupled diary premium payment and that this would be worth almost a €1 per gallon over the next six years to those who gave up milking cows. 'It is regrettable that the EU rules mean that these payments will continue to go to farmers who leave dairying rather than those who are milking the cows,' he said.

Mr. Markey said that this must be the overriding consideration in any milk quota transfer system.

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