Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Ensuring the viability of the maximum number of family dairy farms means improving efficiency and competitiveness right across the sector, at both producer and processor level, at a time of increasing exposure to global market forces.

At producer level, greater efficiency and competitiveness can only be achieved through the attainment of increased economies of scale and the reduction of costs. This quite simply means getting more milk quota into the hands of active, committed dairy farmers. The Report of the Agri Vision 2015 Committee highlighted the need for greater flexibility in the movement of quota from those exiting milk production to those who needed to expand in order to maintain viability and withstand competitive pressures. I acted on this at the end of last year by bringing a more open-market approach to the transfer of quotas through the introduction of a new Milk Quota Trading Scheme.

Replacing the old Restructuring Scheme, the new Trading Scheme has been responsible in its first year for the transfer of 200 million litres of quota, and we have seen that much greater volumes of quota have made their way into the hands of active milk producers than would ever have been possible under the Restructuring Scheme. The Trading Scheme is currently under way in respect of the 2008/2009 milk quota year, and my intention is to continue to build on its success to the maximum extent possible.

From a processing perspective, in April of this year I announced details of 19 capital investment projects that were awarded Government grant assistance of over €114 million under the Dairy Investment Fund, which will in turn generate an overall spend of nearly €300 million in the sector. I am confident that this will assist in particular the production of added value products and the delivery of cost efficiency programmes, which will in turn help to achieve my objective of developing a modern, competitive food sector in Ireland, as envisaged in the Agri Vision 2015 Action Plan.