At his first Dairy Forum, the new Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed, launched a booklet to help dairy farmers better plan their cashflow.
According to the Minister, todays’ Dairy Forum discussed ongoing challenges in the sector with an emphasis on current market developments and the response currently under consideration at EU level.
But, before the Forum, the Minister launched a new booklet from the Forum stakeholders, which is designed to help farmers better plan their on-farm cashflow.
The booklet will be sent to all dairy farmers from their co-op with their monthly milk cheque, while cash flow training will be incorporated into all Teagasc dairy Discussion Group meetings.
According to the Minister, the initiative from the Dairy Forum is timely and responds to the need identified by all stakeholders for cash flow and financial planning training for dairy farmers.
“It represents a very positive example of stakeholder collaboration. Equipping farmers with better financial planning skills is essential, and I would encourage all farmers to engage with this initiative.”
Creed also said that the continuation of the Forum is a commitment in the current Programme for Government given the need for a collaborative strategic approach to the issues facing the sector including current market volatility.
At European level, he said he is engaging intensively with Commissioner Hogan and Agriculture Ministers from other EU member States on the potential for further response to current market difficulties and today’s Forum was a key part helping to inform the Irish position in these discussions.
“The recent agreement of the Commissioner to raise the available volumes for intervention of SMP in response to my request is a concrete example of meaningful market support tools being deployed in response to this volatility”.
Access to finance was also discussed at the meeting and Creed indicated that he had recently met with the CEOs of AIB and Bank of Ireland.
“One of my priorities under the Programme for Government will be to support the provision of lower cost and more flexible finance for the sector. I have now conveyed that message strongly to all of the banking institutions.”
Minister Creed said Ireland’s continued strong export performance in the sector points towards the long-term fundamentals of the Irish dairy sector being sound.
“The priority has to be on the measures which can help producers ride out this current slump, as well as on measures which can minimise the effects of such downward volatility in the future.
“While there has been volatility in dairy markets in recent times, it is important to remember that the medium term prospects for global dairy markets are good.
“How we mitigate the current volatility is the challenge. Volatility in dairy markets is a global problem, an EU problem and an Irish problem for which there is no single silver bullet. Fixed price and margin contracts, futures markets and access to increasingly flexible forms of credits are all part of the toolkit that will be required.”