Pressure on dairy intervention

With prices dipping at the New Zealand global dairy trade auction, albeit by a modest 1.3% this week, the European Commission is under renewed pressure to look at intervention support arrangements.

The intervention price was set in 2003 and had not been revised since.

This pressure is coming from lobby organisation and dairy trade interests.

The New Zealand situation reflects high global stocks.

Prices have now been in the doldrums for a year, and brief gains for the GDT in December have been more than reversed after six months of declining prices.

On that basis few analysts are willing to forecast when prices will improve, or even whether that can happen by the end of the year.

The Agriculture Committee of the European Parliament has joined the Environment Committee in opposing commission proposals to allow member states to impose unilateral bans on the import and use of genetically modified livestock feed ingredients.

This has been described as one of the biggest examples of opposition to a proposal by MEPs, uniting people from across the political spectrum.

The proposal would have threatened trade between member states and left the EU open to legal action for a non-scientific trade ban.

With this plan effectively killed off, the commission will now have to find an alternative way to secure agreement between member states on the way ahead on GM crops and ingredients.

MEPs have dug their heels in over planned new rules for so-called novel foods, which include meat and dairy products from cloned animals.

The commission had proposed banning cloning in the EU and all imports of cloned animals. This legislation would be reviewed once the science became clearer, which would be a considerable time away.

However MEPs are insisting the legislation goes further. They want to ban the progeny of cloned animals and the import of any products that come from progeny as well as cloned animals.

The commission says this would be unworkable, since in third countries it would be impossible to identify and separate products from cloned animals’ progeny.

MEPs say they are against the principle of cloning, and against the EU allowing it to be used elsewhere.

EU farm ministers have limped to a deal on the future certification of organic food.

While this is a relatively small issue in an EU agricultural context, it has proved contentious. Tough inspection rules have been watered down, but much of the original proposal still stands.

This will now go out for agreement between the commission, farm ministers and the European Parliament – with a final deal possible by the end of the year.

Farm ministers also agreed this week to accept commission proposals that country of origin labelling should not be extended to dairy products, though voluntary national labelling schemes will be allowed.