Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 205: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he is satisfied that there is sufficient capacity within the milk processing industry, particularly the co-operative sector, to take advantage of the opportunity arising from the termination of the EU milk quota system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36894/11]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the abolition of milk quotas in 2015 means, in the medium-term, achieving the Food Harvest 2020 target of a 50 per cent increase in milk production by 2020. This is a target that I believe will be achieved through a focused and determined implementation of the report's recommendations for the dairy sector, which include:

(i) the need to improve on-farm competitiveness through, for example, animal health and genetic improvement programmes as well as increased efficiency through education and technology transfer,

(ii) the need to ensure adequate capacity and maximum efficiency at processing level,

(iii) the need to facilitate more commercially focused R&D and marketing activities, as well as further research into strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The provision of adequate processing capacity is of course a matter for the milk processing industry itself. It is encouraging that the importance of the issue has been acknowledged in the Dairy Expansion Activation Group's Road Map for the implementation of Food Harvest 2020 in the dairy sector, and I am confident that the processing industry will respond as necessary and will work with the rest of the sector to ensure that the Food Harvest 2020 objectives are met.