This article is from page 38 of the 2007-10-16 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 38 JPG
THE gloves have come off and it’s starting to get personal. The ICMSA launched an incredible attack on Teagasc last week, describing their plans for a massive increase in the milk quotas as ‘half-baked and glo- rified pub talk’.
ICMSA president, Jackie Cahill, bashed Teagasc’s call for a massive expansion in milk quota and called on the organisation to weigh up the different quota options open to Ire- land and make a recommendation based on the best interests of Irish dairy farmers and the dairy sector
which those farmers underpin.
“This is unfortunately typical of the kind of half-baked theorising that Teagasc has lately chosen to describe as ‘research’ and which always seems to obscure a question rather than throwing some light on it,” said Cahill.
‘Proper research 1s needed and this is precisely what we’re not getting. Today’s statement might be charita- bly described as useless and could more accurately be described as con- fused nonsense.
“Dairy farmers will be veering be- tween amusement and bewilderment as they try and work out how a three
per cent increase in milk quota would depress milk prices and lead to an overall loss to dairy farmers while a 20 per cent increase in quota would leave many farmers better off.
“Can Teagasc tell us how many farmers and how much better off they’d be? What we’re seeing here — yet again — 1s Teagasc’s inability to give direct answers to relatively straightforward questions. [If it’ll help them, Ill happily set out here the questions to which dairy farmers need a direct answer from Teagasc.
“What will be the impact of milk price for every one per cent increase in quota, what will be the likely
price in Ireland for every one per cent reduction in the tariff protec- tion in WTO and what will be the likely price of milk if there was no quota?”
Last week Teagasc had called for a large expansion of the EU milk quo- ta, which they claimed would benefit the Irish dairy sector in advance of milk quota abolition, but may not suit all dairy farmers.
Teagasc economist, Trevor Don- nellan, said that if a large quota increase was agreed as part of the upcoming CAP Health Check, few other EU Member States would have the potential to increase production