As the Council of European Agriculture Ministers meets in Brussels this Monday, the European Union's Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Affairs Phil Hogan said that he would recommend the extension of existing public intervention and private storage aid measures past the end of September.

"Now that we know that the Russian authorities are going to extend the ban for another year on agicultural imports, it's important that we are proactive and continue to supppport producers, who will obviously have a difficult time arising from this particular ban again in 2015 and 2016," Hogan said on his way out of the Council of Ministers' meeting. "I have asked the Commission to agree with proposals to continue with the measures in the dairy sector - aid to private storage and intervention levels beyond 30 September 2015 deadline, and I've also asked for new measures to be agreed for financial support in the form of withdrawing product from the market for the fruit and vegetable sector."

Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney welcomed the extension of existing dairy measures, but called for further action from Hogan. "I have asked the Commissioner to give serious consideration to an intervention price increase. There can be no doubt that softening of global dairy markets has had an impact on dairy farmers in Ireland and throughout the EU and the possibilities remain for this to continue. In such context, the full range of measures should be under consideration in terms of any possible response," Coveney said, adding that he had "asked the Commission to look at increasing both the volumes eligible and price paid for intervention to a level that provides a realistic safety net."

Last week, however, Hogan ruled out an increase in the intervention price of 21c/l, saying it would be "counterproductive".

The IFA's dairy chairman Sean O'Leary, too, called for the intervention price to be raised. “The private storage scheme has been in strong use, especially for butter, and is undoubtedly helping to hold prices from collapsing to current intervention levels. However, it has not halted the continued slide in EU dairy returns,” he said.

Pekka Pesonen, the secretary general of the EU-wide farming organisation Copa-Cogeca, added that farmgate milk prices remained below production costs in many countries and warned that the situation is expected to deteriorate further. “Copa and Cogeca consequently call on the Commission to advance the direct payments before 1st December and to ensure that the 2014/2015 superlevy is returned to the dairy sector to help dairy farmers with their cash flow problems. The EU milk intervention price also needs to be raised to take account of higher production costs," he said.