Dairy Industry Ireland (DII) has welcomed the confirmation from the European Commission to introduce Aids to Private Storage (APS) for dairy produce.

DII has said that the package for the dairy aspect of the APS scheme will be worth in the region of €30 million. Further details are set to be announced tomorrow, Thursday, April 23, by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Conor Mulvihill, the director of DII, said: “DII has been consistently lobbying for an extended time for measures, and had recently sent the report ‘The potential Impact of Covid-19 on the Irish Dairy Industry‘ – conducted by business advisory firm EY – to the commission to give empirical support for our arguments.

The DII report highlighted in stark terms the threat facing the Irish dairy processing industry as well as farmers and the rural economy, without national and EU supports.

“We look forward to working with Minister [Michael Creed] and his team in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on implementing that package to help protect businesses and their suppliers,” Mulvihill concluded.

The APS for dairy is divided into storage for skim milk powder (SMP), butter and cheese. The dairy package would comprise storage for a total of 330,000t of dairy produce, according to market sources.

This storage would range in length from two months up to six or seven months, it is believed, for dairy produce across the EU.

The APS is part of a commission aid package for the European agricultural sector in light of the disruption brought on by Covid-19.

The commission will also authorise the derogation from certain competition rules under the Common Markets Organisation (CMO) Regulation, which will be applicable to both the milk and potato sectors.

This would allow operators to adopt “self-organisation market measures”. These sectors will be allowed to collectively take measures to stabilise the market. For example, the milk sector will be allowed to “collectively plan milk production”.