IFA president Joe Healy and liquid milk chair John Finn held a constructive meeting with Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed last week on the IFA Milk Wise 2025 strategy.

Healy urged Minister Creed to follow up on empowering the National Milk Agency (NMA) to better regulate the sector and help to secure economically sustainable remuneration for specialist liquid milk producers.

The IFA president said: “The minister understood our point that the erosion of margins and winter premium payments, together with the opportunities to grow creamery milk production for export, is pushing liquid milk producers to switch to spring calving.

‘‘Retailers and dairies, engaging in ruthless competition for a static market, have damaged the sustainability of specialist liquid milk production – none more so than through the competitive 12-month tenders some of the larger retailers insist on using to select their private label providers.”

IFA national liquid milk chair John Finn added: “Minister Creed was enthused by our agreement with the National Milk Agency to carry out a survey of all 1,800 specialist milk producers to establish their age profile, succession plans and intentions.

“He further agreed that he would engage promptly with the NMA to address some of the relevant issues, especially around multi-annual rather than annual contracts, the timing of their signature relative to the announcement of winter prices and the assessment of adequate compensation, which the NMA has by law to satisfy itself of before registering producer contracts. He also accepted that the NMA needed to be better able to collate data on the liquid milk market, including imports.

“There are other aspects to our strategy relevant to dairies and retailers, and we will be following up on those with the relevant stakeholder representatives in the coming weeks and months,” Finn concluded.