Month: December 2015

Posted on

Is the removal of quotas responsible for the increase in EU milk production in 2015?

The plight of milk producers supplying the dairy cooperative Arla in Denmark and Sweden was the lead article in my Danish newspaper yesterday morning. Interviews with a number of farmers supplying Arla highlighted their loss-making situation at current milk prices. The journalist writing the story highlighted that a number of factors were responsible for the current low milk prices: the Russian import ban on EU dairy products, lower import demand in China but also increased production in the EU which he attributed to the removal of milk quotas in April of this year.
That EU milk production has increased is clear, as shown in the figure below. Production has increased from 135.2 mt in 2008 to a forecast 149.4 mt in 2015 and an estimated 150.8 mt in 2016. More recent data from the Milk Market Observatory (MMO) Dashboard for 23 December 2015 even suggests that the expected increase in 2015 will be significantly higher at 1.8% rather than the 1.1% shown in the December 2015 short-term outlook.… Read the rest

Posted on

Greenhouse gas emission targets and Irish agriculture

Ireland faces a huge challenge in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Enda Kenny got into hot water last week for apparently saying one thing in his official speech to the Paris COP21 climate conference and another thing in unscripted remarks to journalists afterwards. Much of the subsequent controversy during the week revolved around the Irish government’s attitude to agricultural emissions and whether it was seeking special favours for the Irish agricultural sector in the current negotiations on setting national emissions targets for the period to 2030 in the framework of the EU’s 2030 Climate and Energy Package. I look at the background to this controversy in this post.

In his speech to the COP21 conference, Mr Kenny pointed out that Ireland’s national long-term vision is presented in climate legislation. This sets out its intention “to substantially cut CO2 emissions by 2050, while developing an approach towards carbon neutrality in the land sector that does not compromise our capacity for food production”.… Read the rest