Industry collaboration needed to secure Irish milk targets, expert
This content item was originally published on www.dairyreporter.com, a William Reed online publication.
Earlier in the summer the Irish government launched a policy document called Food Harvest 2020 in which it set out a vision for the food and dairy sector over the next 10 years. Doubling of milk output over that period is one of the key goals in the paper.
The Irish government set the target because the phasing out of EU milk quotas is opening the market to the possibility of significant expansion for the first time in years. Agriculture minister Brendan Smith said: “The ending of milk quotas in 2015 represents an exceptional opportunity to grow our milk output.”
We caught up with chief executive of Dairygold, Jim Woulfe, at the AGM of functional ingredients initiative, Food for Health Ireland, in Cork last week to hear about whether the current infrastructure in the Irish dairy sector can support the level of expansion needed to meet the 'ambitious' targets.
