ICOS continues to champion butterfat adjustment to reduce superlevy bill both at home and in Europe.
According to its May update ICOS says it has worked hard to achieve the approval in the EU farm and co-operative umbrella lobby group COPA COGECA of a joint paper advocating a butterfat adjustment to ease the superlevy burden on farmers.
It said: “Attention now turns to the run up to Agriculture Council meeting in June, and the accompanying dairy report, to convince a majority of Ministers from across Europe to support our case.”
“We will be working closely with partners and our Department to try and deliver on this ongoing and hard fought campaign.”
“Our parallel campaign against the extension of the quota regime and market management proposals got a significant boost at a recent meeting in Athens when Commissioner Ciolos stated that there will be no dairy market management proposals from the current commission mandate. He said that he wished to use the new milk market observatory ‘to anticipate problems’.”
ICOS stated that it is working closely on the development of this new observatory and its function will be discussed elsewhere in this newsletter.
The Observatory will be governed by an Economic Board, consisting of permanent staff, from the Commission, representatives of stakeholders, farmers, co-ops, processors, traders and retailers, and independent experts, to be called upon as required. This Board will meet four times per year, and will oversee the collection of data on milk supply, processing volumes, stock levels, trade levels, and price levels and margins.