DEAR EDITOR

Tirlán needs to pay a fair price for milk. It’s young farmers entering the business who need to know there’s a future and small family farms are the businesses that suffer from low prices paid and they are the cornerstone of the industry.

At the moment, there’s hundreds of millions of euros been spent on whey and drier facilities– all this growth and farmers have to take a weaker price for milk. The farmer can’t plan or develop because of volatility.

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Farmers need a guarantee of milk price yearly. If a farmer-owned creamery wants loyalty from its suppliers, it needs to charge a fair price for its farm inputs, meal and fertiliser.

A farmer-owned creamery with no debt – is it in danger of following the same trail as Glanbia – bigger and better at a cost to the farmer?

If we look at the horticultural industry we see what happened with low prices paid to farmers and cheap imports.

Farmers have a tough slog ahead of them with calving and working under all pressures and weathers. Give a thought to them when working in your warm offices.