Irish dairy farming in 2024 is at a crossroads. The first half of the year has been characterised by poor weather conditions, high costs and an uncertain policy environment, not helped by this year’s local and European Parliament elections. The poor weather has been the most notable negative factor as we head into the second half of 2024. Even those parts of Ireland that normally escape the heaviest rainfall experienced record-breaking precipitation, and we have had livestock being housed in Ireland until April – a full month after they would normally be turned out to grass.

Ireland is well known for its grass-based system, and we had the challenge of cows being put out and then brought back into housing as the last of the spring rainstorms swept across the country. All of this has had a significant additional impact on the cost of production, still high from the inflationary spike in fertiliser and energy costs. Many farmers had to buy surplus silage from neighbours or graze grass that was earmarked for forage. The cumulative effect of these impacts can be gauged by data that shows a dramatic fall in production of up to 10% compared to 2023.

What’s remarkable is that at any other time or in any other circumstance, a fall of this magnitude would have buyers scrambling to buy forward as available volumes diminish – but not this year. Prices are inching upwards at a rate that bears no relation to what might be expected in light of this kind of double-digit fall in production. This is the ‘perfect storm’, where production costs stay high despite falling production and everything is compounded by stubbornly high input costs.

We spoke in a previous letter about the changes in farm policy due to amendments to the nitrates derogation introduced by the Irish Government. The regulatory ‘ratchet’ is being turned steadily and the ability to scale up and produce more to offset the continuing pressure on margins is being steadily lost. This dilemma can be directly attributed to the EU: they refuse to address unfair retailer dominance in the supply chain and relentless margin-grabbing. But they are prepared to immediately proceed with the regulatory curbs to production that prevent farmers from producing the volumes needed to offset the loss of margin.

This is simply political and economic cowardice: if politicians even murmur about ‘fairness towards farmers’ through margin reform and protection, retail corporations just raise the spectre of food inflation, and the cowed politicians (pun intended) immediately back off.

Well, we can’t back off because there’s no-one left after us. We can’t get our children to take over farms that have been in our families for generations and centuries. They won’t do it because they can’t see how our precarious situation changes. Increasingly, it looks like they are right.

Denis Drennan, President, Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA)

Alongside protests across Europe, Swiss farmers decided to speak out and voice their frustration. Among their concerns, the administrative burden is high up the list, which is why a new measure that the Federal Office of Agriculture plans to progressively implement as of 2025 was rejected at once.

The German Farmers’ Union (DBV) and German Raiffeisen Association wrote an open letter to Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner. The aim is probably to gain his support in preventing the transposition of Article 148 CMO into national law. By now, the dairy sector association (MIV) seems to take a more relaxed stance on this matter, stating that the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) should finally take action and do what they couldn’t help doing.

On 29 May 2024, dairy farmers from AbL, BDM and MEG Milch Board protested with a cow at the Gänsemarkt square in Hamburg. They called on the Liberal party to stop blocking obligatory milk supply contracts and on the two other parties in the three-party coalition not to give in to this pressure.

EU citizens have elected a new parliament and have voted against ‘business as usual’. This election has shown that politics must finally be for and with citizens. In agriculture, too, political strategies must be developed together with the people who work and operate in the sector. Farmers have felt left behind and socially and economically marginalised for many years.