French Farmers Allowed Exceed Quota by 2%!!!

John_F

In last thursdays 12th Jan Farming supplement with the Irish Examiner on page 3

http://www.examiner.ie/business/farming/2-french-leave-for-milk-producers-179805.html

THE French agricultural ministry has said milk producers can exceed their 2011/2012 milk quota by up to 2%, without penalty.
It follows an announcement last

October that French producers up to 170,000 litres (or 37,362 gallons) could exceed their quota by up to 10,000 litres.

Undershooting their milk quota by 5.1% in the 2010/2011 production year, and sharing the EU-wide 1% annual quota increase in the current year, French farmers have scope to increase production by 6.1% without paying a superlevy fine.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, a repeat of the spring 2011 delivery pattern would probably result in a superlevy fine for going over quota.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has warned every milk producer to exercise caution and to seek advice from Teagasc. He said that efforts to secure a soft landing in the lead-up to milk quota abolition continued, and most attention had been focused on a butterfat correction.

"Unfortunately, the commission has consistently resisted attempts to reconsider this issue."

Now maybe its just me but i thought we were part of the European Union and each member state has the same rights as the next, and each member state must obey the EU laws?? Seems that the french can make their own rules / change when it suits and tell everyone else what to do, 'do as i say not as i do' attitude??

On the 6th of October 2011 FF TD Michael Moynihan asked Coveney about an EU wide quota rather than a country specific quota LINK> http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2011-10-06.350.0

Coveney said they were trying for a butterfat correction which would give 1.5-2%,
Moynihan replied

. . . Did he receive solid support from the French Minister for Agriculture in their discussions last Friday? According to the information available earlier this year, France was among the countries which were unwilling to enter into further negotiations on a European wide milk quota. The Minister referred to flexibility on butterfat potentially facilitating an increase in milk quota of between 1.5% and 2% this year. Is this is a serious possibility?. . .

with a reply from coveney

To be clear on this matter, there is no appetite in France to reopen the milk quota negotiations on the soft landing. We are asking the French minister to consider agreeing to a butterfat correction, which would not be popular among French farmers. The overriding concern for France and Germany is to retain the milk quota regime as it stands until 2015. They believe any flexibility or loosening of the current arrangement could lead to a reduction in milk prices as a result of increases in supply. We do not share that assessment. While there is not a strong appetite in France or Germany for revisiting the milk quota issue, we have, for the first time, secured a response which suggested both countries would consider constructively the issue of a butterfat correction. Such a correction would be very helpful in terms of this year’s milk quota but would not offer any solutions in the two subsequent years. We will continue to pursue this issue, working with the French and trying to convince the German Minister for Agriculture who has been absolutely resistant on this matter, even on the possibility of a butterfat correction. While we have much diplomatic work to do to make progress on this issue, there is no shortage of effort on our part.

So France told Coveney a heap of dung and went and done their own thing with it seems no EU approval like we need... why cant Coveney do the same... afraid he will get a slap on the hand?? We are / were told that the milk quota issue is not for discussion / review until December 2012

From the French ministry of agriculture website http://agriculture.gouv.fr/Mesure-complementaire-de-gestion

Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries, Rural and Regional Development, decided, in consultation with the family business, management measures of milk quotas by the end of 2011/2012.

Given the current balance of the national collection, it has announced a measure to ensure that all producers exceeding 2% of their quota without being penalized. This measure is aimed at producers who will benefit, at the end of the season, a rate of provisional allocations of purchaser of milk less than 2%.

This measure complements that for small producers, announced on October 12. The latter (whose quota is less than or equal to 170 000 liters 000 liters against 160 last season) will exceed their individual quota to a maximum of 10 000 liters.

Bruno Le Maire said that these measures will allow producers to take advantage of the good performance of the dairy market this year and they are a continuation of the revaluation this summer from 5% to 7% of the maximum rate of provisional allocations that buyers can make their producers.

Dacian Ciolos the EU Agri Commissioner is going to be in Dublin next Wednesday and Thrusday, he will be going to the IFA AGM, meeting Simon Coveney and will address Andrew Doyle's Oireachtas Agricultural Committee

• Will the IFA raise this issue at the AGM (Coveney and Enda will also be in attendance)
• Will Coveney speak up for the dairy farmers facing a levy fine
• Will the Agri Committee be just looking in awe at the commissioner or will they be allowed ask questions

John_F

Note the quote from the French Ministry of Ag is translated using google so may not be word for word :rolleyes: http://agriculture.gouv.fr/Mesure-complementaire-de-gestion

5live

Jaysus.

I can see the headlines now

Big shock as big countries in EU manipulate rules to suit own end

Its not the first time it has happened. I can think of about 40 billion euro times it has happened before:rolleyes:

Thanks for that, John F

Edit. Just reading that again and the increase is the quota allocation for this year (1%) plus their under quota figure for last, similar to here in the 2010/2011 milk year so they are still on quota ie last year +1%. The article was worded particularly poorly for the examiner

Injuryprone

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but all the french seem to be doing here is guaranteeing flexi-milk to try and get some extra production. Seeing as they're around 5% under, it doesn't seem that big a gamble to offer 2% flexi. At the end of the day, if the country as a whole doesn't go over, no-one would be penalised anyway. I guess they're taking some of the risk away from farmers.

They don't say they're increasing the quotas by 2% or that this is a permanent situation, it's for this year only (as they know their current quota situation).

I don't see the significance of the story tbh.

John_F

I should have read todays examiner before making the thread maybe

http://www.examiner.ie/business/worried-irish-milk-producers-cut-production-to-avoid-superlevy-180024.html

In response to media reports that French farmers have been told they could exceed their quota by 2% this year, Kevin Kiersey explained that this is not additional quota, but quota currently unfilled in France. He added France had ended the last quota year over 5% under quota.

"French farmers pay superlevy as soon as they exceed their personal quota, even if milk supplies in their milk purchaser and in the country as a whole remain under quota. There is no such thing as fleximilk in France," he explained.

"Despite strong production increases, France remains under quota. Their minister for agriculture has simply advised farmers that they would be allowed a further 2% of production before they are charged superlevy.

"This does not mean that any additional quota has been made available to France, but rather that farmers have been allowed greater leeway to fill more of the national quota," he said.

Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/business/worried-irish-milk-producers-cut-production-to-avoid-superlevy-180024.html#ixzz1jO3IlTw7

still doesn't cure the fact that next april millions will be taken out of the local economy (face it, its money that farmers will spend locally, be it in terms of feed, machinery etc) at a time of good milk prices and where new markets for dairy products are being taken up by the US and Australia / NZ

Injuryprone

John_F wrote: »

still doesn't cure the fact that next april millions will be taken out of the local economy (face it, its money that farmers will spend locally, be it in terms of feed, machinery etc) at a time of good milk prices and where new markets for dairy products are being taken up by the US and Australia / NZ

Rules are rules.

It's not like it hasn't happened before. (and it's not definately going to happen this year. A very wet March and things might look a bit different)

Tipp Man

Don't Irish farmers under 70k gallons get their levy back anyway??

JohnBoy

looks like a storm in a tea cup to me.

if anything that reads to me like the french have been far stricter on quotas than we have.

quota only seems to matter in this country when everyone exceeds them and the whole country goes over.

that reads to me like the french farmers individually have to stick to their quotas but have been a 2% dispensation.



Quotas and super levy's suck. but it's not like they're a new invention.

John_F

JohnBoy wrote: »

looks like a storm in a tea cup to me.

if anything that reads to me like the french have been far stricter on quotas than we have.

quota only seems to matter in this country when everyone exceeds them and the whole country goes over.

that reads to me like the french farmers individually have to stick to their quotas but have been a 2% dispensation.



Quotas and super levy's suck. but it's not like they're a new invention.

aye thats what it reads to me in the third post i done above . . . wouldn't have gathered it from the 1st article though, did you? :pac:

JohnBoy

eh, yeah.

PMU

Tipp Man wrote: »

Don't Irish farmers under 70k gallons get their levy back anyway??

why would they?

Tipp Man

PMU wrote: »

why would they?

Don't they have first entitlement to nearly all of the fleximilk??

PMU

there will be damn all flexi this year