The Commission has proposed a 2% increase in milk quotas beginning on 1 April 2008 to apply on an equal basis to the 27 Member States. This proposal repeats the Commission’s proposal for a 2% increase in the 2003 Mid Term Review (additional to the 1.5% increase already agreed for 11 Member States as part of Agenda 2000). Member States at that time rejected the proposal but called on the Commission to report on the market situation, once the reform was fully implemented, before a final decision was taken. The Commission has also published this market outlook report which argues that the expected positive growth in demand for dairy products both on the EU and world markets offers ample opportunities to absorb a 2% quota increase.… Read the rest
Options for milk quota reform
How to manage the transition to the phasing out of milk quotas is one of the items on the CAP Health Check agenda. A recent study from the FAPRI-Ireland team based in the Rural Economy Research Centre, Teagasc in Ireland has examined the impacts of two alternative transition paths to phasing out milk quotas by their expected date of elimination in 2014/15. … Read the rest
Prospect for milk quota increases next year
The UK Farmers Guardian reports that Mrs Fischer Boel was forced to confirm that allowing an increase in milk production would be addressed as part of the Commission’s Health Check proposals expected in November after Germany raised concerns about rising retail prices. The Commission has a number of options, including an annual market-linked increase in quota, a reduction in superlevy, or the scrapping of restrictions on the transfer of quota between member states. A number of member states have already sought a quota increase. As I argued yesterday, increasing milk quota without at the same time sending a signal that current levels of dairy protection must be reduced by lowering support prices is likely to encourage farmers into an unsustainable increase in investment with considerable pain to follow when quotas are finally eliminated in 2015.… Read the rest
Good prospects for dairy reform
A particular milestone in the CAP was passed last month when the European Commission set export refunds on dairy products to zero for the first time ever in the management of the EU dairy regime. This reflects the extraordinary jump in world market prices for milk products in the past twelve months, with prices for skim milk powder more than doubling in US dollar terms.
Source: USDA Dairy: World Markets and Trade July 2007… Read the rest
The dairy paradox
British dairy farmers are leaving the industry in large numbers, but world milk and milk product prices are heading upwards fast. How can one explain this paradox? The simple answer is, of course, that the key UK liquid milk market is largely insulated from world market factors.… Read the rest
Butter mountain finally melts
The satisfied look of this cow in the Azores is no great surprise as it receives one of the biggest cattle subsidies in the EU, although still not enough for Portugal who voted against the last CAP reform on the issue of the fate of dairy cows in the Atlantic islands. After 39 years of a butter mountain under the CAP, it has finally melted away. When the Soviet Union still existed, stocks of ‘ageing’ butter used to be sold off to its consumers who were glad to get any butter at all.… Read the rest
EU's share of global milk production falling
The EU’s share of global milk production is falling as a result of the quota system according to Rabobank dairy specialist Mark Voorbegen. Addressing a seminar organized by Dairy UK, he said that the EU had a 27 per cent share of the global market in 2005, down from the 1995 level of 31 per cent. By 2015 it is forecast to fall to 25 per cent (although by then quotas may have been abolished).… Read the rest
EU’s share of global milk production falling
The EU’s share of global milk production is falling as a result of the quota system according to Rabobank dairy specialist Mark Voorbegen. Addressing a seminar organized by Dairy UK, he said that the EU had a 27 per cent share of the global market in 2005, down from the 1995 level of 31 per cent. By 2015 it is forecast to fall to 25 per cent (although by then quotas may have been abolished).… Read the rest