A growing demand for dairy products ensures a very positive outlook for the industry, the 900 delegates attending the World Dairy Summit in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin, heard yesterday.
The prediction was made by the president of the International Dairy Federation, Jim Begg, who told the delegates from 50 countries that demand from Asia and drought in the southern hemisphere and southern Mediterranean countries had led to a world shortage of dairy products.
But Mr Begg warned that the environment would test the ability of the industry to manage change. "It is an issue which affects us greatly in the dairy industry, operating as we do in the global market," he said.
President Mary McAleese made delegates smile by telling them she faced three dairy choices each breakfast time - milk, cheese and "real butter".
"For many generations this sector was one of very few economic success stories that Ireland could boast of. Today it is joined by many more from software to financial services, from pharmaceuticals to high-added value agri-products," she said.
The President said the dairy sector's ability to manage change and indeed to drive it has been at the root of its success as had been shown by the spread of technology and innovation throughout the sector.
Minister for Agriculture and Food Mary Coughlan said that for the first time in a considerable period the dairy sector was faced with a sharp rise in demand.
"I was anxious to ensure that EU and Irish farmers would not be left behind in the scramble to share in the gains that are being brought about by current market buoyancy and have been attempting to have the EU relax the restrictions on milk quota expansion," she said.
The Minister said that increasing the milk quota by 3 per cent now was a better response to current levels of demand rather than a free-for-all dismantling of the quota regime.
Irish Dairy Board chief executive Noel Coakley said the maintenance of EU milk quota restrictions at a time of milk shortages would neither serve the best interests of European farmers nor those of the global dairy sector.