Milk needs to be closely monitored

By Matt Dempsey

It has been relatively easy to disguise the effect that falling cereal and beef prices have had on farmers. Go to any farmer meeting and the number making their full-time income from beef production is tiny. Either the farmer or the spouse has usually taken up an off-farm job or much more unusually the farm has developed some form of alternative enterprise. We can see this development graphically as the number of jobs created in the overall economy increases.

On the grain side the scale of operation of the full-time operators has expanded exponentially. The extra land has come through renting and various leasing arrangements - not through purchase.

But milk is different. Some in special circumstances will be able to combine medium-scale dairying with alternative employment but we have to get to a point where we say that the production from say 60 to 70 cows has to be enough to support a full-time farm.

In the Dairy Feature section online, Joe Rea reports from France. It is quite clear from the interview that there is an understanding between government, farmers, processors and retailers that a sensible price level has to be maintained. The basic core of the issue is that left to itself the market drives down commodity prices. Last week we published the list of milk prices payable to dairy farmers across the world. The lowest price was paid in Chile - 8 cents/litre - a comparatively rich country but where co-ops are non-existent and the market is totally dominated by Nestle.

This week farmers have begun sporadic protests in supermarkets. The Competition Authority is keeping a watchful eye ready to pounce at any hint of "market interference''. But as the chairman of the Authority said recently, they only take on cases they are likely to win. So they tackle soft targets, not the real issues, especially those in the professions that are strangling Irish life. This is not just an argument about liquid milk but the problem is at its most vivid there. Our French interviewee dreams of a single European selling agency owned by farmers. A useful start would be to activate the Dairy Board - formerly Bord Bainne - and United Milk in Northern Ireland into joint action. Both are owned ultimately by farmers.

There is no reason why these two entities should not combine to mop up any surplus milk on the island and in talks with Government establish an acceptable "regulated price'' as we have for electricity and telephone services. This joint co-op approach is evident in the latest rescue of the Westbury plant in Somerset (see AgriBusiness)

Fresh broad-reaching policy initiatives are desperately needed.