The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has today (Thursday, April 14) formally ratified Denis Drennan as the new deputy president of the association.
The dairy farmer from Dunbell, Co. Kilkenny was elected to the role at the National Council meeting in Limerick this morning.
Drennan previously held the role of chair of the ICMSA Farm and Rural Affairs Committee and has replaced Lorcan McCabe in the role after McCabe announced his resignation last month.
At today’s meeting, Drennan paid warm tribute to his predecessor and undertook to work closely with the president, Pat McCormack to “defend the commercial family farms represented by ICMSA”, describing them as being “under attack from every angle” at the moment.
President of ICMSA, Pat McCormack, previously said that he looked forward to working closely with Drennan “whose command of the technical issues around particularly emissions and the environment will equip him for the challenges that go with his new position”.
ICMSA
Meanwhile, Pat McCormack believes that the uptake for the proposed Food Dairy Vision Group (FDVG) retirement scheme will be quite low, irrespective of the money that government makes available for it.
Pat McCormack told Agriland this week: “Pension schemes only work if they encourage generational change. And this is not within the remit of FDVG.
“The proposed pension scheme now on the table will only be of interest to those intensive milk producers who want to throttle back the scale of their businesses.”
McCormack went on to say that government must target new, independent money to the finalise selection of proposals emanating from the FDVG.
“We don’t want to see a redirecting of CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] or other funds, that have already been earmarked for farm-related support measures,” he said.
Significantly, the ICMSA president is not supporting the 35% reduction in nitrogen (N) fertiliser application rates also under discussion by FDVG members.
The group’s chair, Prof. Gerry Boyle, believes that the implementation of such a measure could make a major contribution to the attainment of climate change targets across agriculture as a whole.