“There’s nothing more frustrating than dealing with the Europeans on agricultural issues, I can assure you of that from a US perspective,” said Gregg Doud, CEO and president of the National Milk Producers Federation when asked what he thought of the EU/US trade deal.

“That goes all the way back to many issues, the beef hormone issue, the chlorinated chicken issue. This stuff drives me crazy. You complain about that over in Europe, but you come over to the US and eat our steaks every time you come over here,” Doud told the Irish Farmers Journal.

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For him, the most frustrating thing in Europe is the mandates put on farmers as he says the “US would never tolerate”.

“Our system is based upon voluntary programmes, incentive-based programmes, market-driven programmes that work very well. We can get to the same endpoint without the mandate here in the US, and we work very hard to do that every day,” said Doud, who is also a former chief agricultural negotiator.

Meanwhile, there has been $12bn (€10.33bn) invested in dairy in the US as the industry is changing “dramatically” with GLP-1s, new product development and the demand for protein in the world, according to Doud.

“It’s a really remarkable time for dairy in the US and then beef on dairy on top of that, and the methane digesters. The change in the dairy industry in the last five years has been absolutely remarkable.”

The day-old beef calf is around 20% of the income stream for dairy farmers at the moment, which Doud attributes to the “red hot” demand for beef among consumers.

Kerrygold butter

When it comes to opportunities for Irish products, he said Kerrygold butter is the “most famous product in the United States these days”.

“I think to your credit, you’ve developed a brand and you’ve put a lot of money behind it, and it’s been successful. We think that our cheese is just as good here as what you have in parts of Europe, we’d like to be able to have a level playing field there.”