The dairy crisis struggles on with returns not matching costs. There are a number of factors. The first is simply oversupply. When Noel Cawley was chief executive of the Irish Dairy Board, or Ornua as it now is, he constantly maintained that high oil prices meant high demand for dairy products.

Normally, high oil-producing countries have poorly developed agricultural sectors and especially badly developed dairy sectors, mainly because their currencies appreciate making domestic farming less competitive with foreign imports. This is in addition to their populations being cosseted with oil-induced government spending, as well as developing a western-type diet.

With reduced purchasing power, we should not be surprised at the decline in demand for milk but the Russian ban and the margin protection regime in the US, leading to continuously increased production in the US, have exacerbated the problem. Of the two, the US policy is probably the more important.

In a normally operating market, supply and demand will generally even out but not if the biggest powder exporter in the world, which the US now is, has insulated its producers from market realities. The US justification for its policy is interesting. It goes like this: “With the collapse of the WTO Doha round, the only legal WTO constraints we are under is to keep our total level of support to the sector in line with the agreements reached under the Uruguay round.’’ This was finalised back in April 1994, over 20 years ago. There is no doubt that the US dairy policy is so directly product related that is acting as an export subsidy.

Europe has formerly abandoned export subsidies, intervention stock piles are rapidly rising, producers are losing money and we are fighting with at least one hand tied behind our back when we look at the international marketplace.

There are a number of things that can be done, such as feeding whey protein to pigs. With international protein prices rising, this helps the really beleaguered pig sector, also locked out of Russia, as well as bringing supply and demand back into balance.

There is no money in the EU kitty, but with present interest rates, any arm of the EU could raise money for less than 1%. We need to show the US that we are serious about managing our agriculture and maintaining a viable farming sector. It needs to be given notice that its current support system is grossly distorting world markets and that it will be contested. To continue negotiating in the international framework of the TTIP format is nonsense.

Europe’s agriculture ministers and governments have shown themselves capable of taking sensible action when they blocked the trade section of the Commission from granting beef concessions to the Mercosur countries. We must show similar resolve in our discussions with the US.