Ireland's potential €15.3 million share of a proposed EU-wide €540 million fertiliser support package has been dismissed as "derisory".

The president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) today (Thursday, July 2) described the potential allocation as “hilariously inadequate".

Denis Drennan said it is vitally important that farmers who paid "inflated prices" for fertiliser should be prioritised for financial support.

The EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen, has outlined that Ireland's allocation is likely to be in the region of €15.3 million.

The commissioner confirmed details of the potential allocations to member states on social media - this also showed that Ireland is among the top 10 beneficiary member states of the package.

However the ICMSA president said that his organisation had hoped to see a different approach to the distribution of the fertiliser aid package.

“Certainly, ICMSA would be recommending that rather than the one for everyone in the audience approach which would result in a payment of approximately of €120 per farmer, that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) utilise the Fertiliser Register that records exactly who bought what and and in what volumes.

"This pitiful subsidy could then be directed towards those farmers who were actually most impacted upon by the inflated fertiliser prices," Drennan added.

Fertiliser

According to DAFM Irish fertiliser imports have held relatively steady throughout the Middle East conflict.

But urea has been the most impacted by the conflict because of the volume of urea that is exported through the Strait of Hormuz.

Fertiliser prices spiked in Ireland because of the US-Iran war with calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) estimated to have risen by around 20% since the beginning of March, while urea had jumped by as much as 60%.

Recent National Fertiliser Database information indicates that despite the impact of the Iran war on the global fertiliser industry, Irish fertiliser importers have continued to secure supplies since the war began on February 28.