2% Milk Quota Increase - Farming | farming news | cattle prices | ifa

2% Milk Quota Increase

Written by Cian MacSweeny
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Mary Coughlan TD, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, has outlined a series of measures in the milk sector designed to facilitate the management of the Irish quota system to meet new opportunities and future quota changes at EU level. At the opening of the new Emmental Cheese facility at Tipperary Co-op, the first project completed under the Dairy Investment Fund, Minister Coughlan expressed her intention to allocate the 2% quota increase, secured at the Council of Agriculture Ministers last week, to individual quota holders active on 1st April 2008. Producers would be granted this quota on a permanent basis. Minister Mary Coughlan stated that she had contemplated several allocation possibilities that had been suggested to her by various organisations. She eventually settled on allocating 2% additional quota to every producer active on 1st April 2008 deeming it to be the fairest method of allocation because it rewarded farmers appropriately for the efforts they had made individually to building up their farm enterprises. The Minister said: “In making this decision I am conscious of the fact that further quota increases will be agreed in future years as the EU moves in the direction of quota abolition in 2015.” A notice will be published by Minister Coughlan giving effect to this decision soon. The additional quota will come into effect from the 1st of April 2008 onwards.