CAP budget

IFA president Joe Healy addressed the EU Farm Council meeting of agriculture ministers in Bulgaria last week on the importance of an increased budget. He stressed that proposed cuts to the CAP budget are a major threat to farming and must be strongly resisted. He said the EU farm ministers must insist on a CAP budget that takes account of inflation and the cost of any additional measures imposed on farmers.

Dairy markets strengthen

Dairy market returns have been increasing steadily in the last few months, and now solidly underpin the prices currently being paid by Irish co-ops, with real scope for improvements, dairy chair Tom Phelan has said. He said co-ops must reflect improved market returns in their milk price decisions and be mindful that farmers are still struggling after the fodder shortage and financial pressures of an eight-month winter.

Lamb prices

IFA national sheep chair Sean Dennehy is reminding farmers that supplies are tight and factories are finding it difficult to source lambs to meet market demand. He advised farmers to dig in hard and insist on full value and to desist from moving any under-finished or underweight lambs and continue to sell as lambs become fit.

Smart Farming initiative

Cost-saving studies are under way on farms across the country as part of the IFA-led Smart Farming initiative. The Smart Farming team is currently out on farms identifying how participating farmers can make cost savings and reduce their climate impact. Their target is to identify €5,000 in cost savings on each farm, as well as ways to reduce emissions by 10%. Find out more at www.smartfarming.ie.