For the milk quota year 2012/2013 Ireland was three per cent under quota. This is according to the latest European Commission statistics on member states’ milk quota for delivers for 2012/2013 published this morning.

The milk quota year runs from March to April each year. The 2012/2013 Irish figures published this morning are as follows:

Irish figures for dairy deliveries 2012/2013
Number of active producers 18,470
Quantities delivered, tonnes 5,382,263
Representative fat content, g/kg 38.51
Real average fat content, g/kg 39.43
Adjustment of fat content, tonnes 172,591
Total deliveries after adjustement, tonnes 5,554,854
Available quota for deliveries, tonnes 5,725,059
Overrun, tonnes -170,205
Levy, 1000 EUR 0 Percentage overrun – 3.0 per cent

In comparison to 2011/2012, Ireland was over quota by 1.1 per cent and paid a super levy for that year of €16m. In addition, the number of active farmers decreased from 19,140 to 18,470.

Superlevy

Five member states – Austria, Germany, Denmark, Poland and Cyprus, – exceeded their milk quotas for deliveries in 2012/2013, and must therefore pay penalties, a superlevy totalling roughly €46m, according to the European Commission today.

Overall EU deliveries remained well below (-6.0 per cent) the total quota volumes, compared with -4.7 per cent in 2011/12. The Netherlands overshot its direct sales quota by 1 100t (1.4 per cent) and faces a levy of €301 000.

According to national declarations for the year ending March 31, 2013, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Poland and Cyprus exceeded their national quotas by a total of 163700 tonnes. Surplus production accounts for 0.1 per cent of all European milk delivered or covered by direct sales. In addition, some 22 member states remained under quota, of which 13 at more than 10 per cent below their delivery quota.€27.83 per 100kg is payable in the member state concerned.

According to a spokesman for the Irish Co-Operative Society (ICOS) this morning, it continues to work against supply management and is continually looking for effective tools to help the dairy market post 2015.

The ICOS is a co-operative umbrella organisation that serves and promotes commercial co-operative businesses and enterprise, across multiple sections of the Irish economy. It has more than 150,000 individual members and employ more than 12,000 people in Ireland.

Dairy think-in

Numerous dairy chairmen of ICOS, elected by each individual co-op in Ireland, are meeting with Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney TD this afternoon in Dublin. Top of the agenda is milk sustainability, milk trade, the rollout of the new Common Agricultural Policy, the recent European dairy conference, the structure and organisation of dairy co-ops, the co-ops’ support during the fodder crisis, possibilities of managing price volatility and disease and infection control in dairy farming among other issues.

The full report on Europe’s 2012/13 milk quota is available here.